The Vitagro group of companies and leading Danish genetic company DanBred have signed an agreement to establish a breeding farm for pigs in the Khmelnytskyi region, the company’s press service reported.
According to the report, the Vitagro group of companies began the project to build a new farm in cooperation with DanBred in 2023. The farm is designed to accommodate 1,000 sows at a time and will be able to raise up to 9,000 piglets and up to 250 boars annually. The first offspring are expected in November-December 2025, and sales on the Ukrainian market will start in early 2026.
The farm will breed purebred pigs of the Yorkshire (DanBred Yorkshire), Duroc (DanBred Duroc), and Landrace (DanBred Landrace) breeds. In addition, the main hybrids of DanBred breeds and Duroc boars will be bred. This will ensure the entire DanBred genetics line in Ukraine, and in the future, Duroc breeding material will also become available.
The first two batches of animals have already been delivered to Ukraine and will be delivered to the new farm in early June. The third batch of animals will arrive in Ukraine at the end of June.
“Our pig breeding division has been working with Danish genetics for over 10 years, but now this work will reach a new level, as we will be able to breed this genetics here in Ukraine together with our foreign partners,” said Ivan Varvarchin, project manager at the Vitagro group of companies.
In his opinion, the successful signing of the agreement also indicates that world-renowned companies are actively exploring promising sectors of Ukraine’s economy and, despite the risks, are ready to invest in Ukraine if they see reliable partners here.
“This step is, first, decisive in the development of our strategy and, second, reflects our desire to invest in the development of our Ukrainian business even during the war. We see potential in Ukrainian pig farming and are confident that the industry will experience rapid growth,” commented Stefan Derks, Regional Director of DanBred in Europe.
Oksana Yurchenko, president of the Ukrainian Pig Breeders Association, emphasized that the arrival of companies such as DanBred in Ukraine signals that Ukraine is attractive to foreign investors.
“In addition, our pig farming has long since become a high-tech business that understands the value of global advances in genetics and actively uses them in its work,” she added.
DanBred is a supplier of genetics and service solutions for professional producers. In 2024, DanBred reported annual revenue of EUR 147.2 million and EBITDA of EUR 8.2 million, with pre-tax profit of EUR 6 million. At the end of 2024, DanBred had local breeding farms in 20 countries around the world, which now include Ukraine. DanBred was founded by the Danish Agriculture and Food Council, an organization that has been professionally developing Danish pig genetics for more than 120 years.
The Vitagro Group is one of Ukraine’s largest industrial groups with assets in the agricultural, energy, processing, construction, and chemical industries. It was founded in 1998 and has been operating since then. It owns enterprises in the Khmelnytskyi, Rivne, Volyn, Ivano-Frankivsk, and Kyiv regions. It cultivates about 90,000 hectares of land and is also involved in animal husbandry, horticulture, renewable energy, fertilizer and feed production, construction, and building materials manufacturing. During the full-scale invasion, the group built and launched five processing plants. Vitagro’s head office is located in Khmelnytskyi.
According to the Unified State Register of Legal Entities and Individual Entrepreneurs, the ultimate beneficiary of the investment company Vitagro is People’s Deputy Serhiy Labazuk (parliamentary faction “For the Future”).
