E15.cz – AGRO CS acquired peat bogs in Belarus and increased its sales to almost two billion CZK
Agro CS, based in Česká Skalice near Náchod, a leading Czech producer of garden substrates, grass seed mixes and fertilizers, increased its sales last year by nine percent to 1.8 billion CZK. The company also acquired a large peat bog in Belarus and its production thus became fully self-sufficient.
The entire AGRO CS Group, i.e. all 18 companies from Central and Eastern Europe, achieved a turnover exceeding 2.5 billion CZK last year. The group employs about 700 people, of which 233 work at AGRO CS. Besides peat mining and processing, the company also focuses on production of substrates, fertilizers, seeds, as well as on cultivation of professional turf, services for agricultural companies, engineering production, primary agricultural production, maintenance of golf courses, and operation of its own biogas station. The company supplies substrates and fertilizers to all leading retail chains and garden centres in the Czech Republic.
Last year, AGRO acquired a Belarusian peat mining and processing company. The mining licence should last for over thirty years.
“The new Skuraty peat bog is exceptionally compact and homogenous. It consists of several blocks, which will be gradually mined in order to maintain the quality of the product. The peat from the currently mined block is of the highest quality of the A category, so-called white peat,” explained production manager David Micák. The peat layer on the new site ranges from 1.5 metres on its edges to 6.5 metres in the central part. Intensive mining extracts about one-metre layer per year from this particular peat bog.
Sources in Lithuania
The company plans to mine 75 – 1000 cubic metres of peat from the new bog in 2016, which is about thirty to forty percent of amount annually consumed by the company’s production plants. “We will cover the rest of our needs from other sources in Lithuania. We are fully self-sufficient, covering our peat consumption for twenty years minimum,” added Micák.
AGRO CS acquired one other last year – Engelmann Czech s.r.o., which manages and maintains seven large golf courses in the Czech Republic. In the area of professional turf, AGRO CS annually supplies over 20 hectares of professional turf sod, which are produced on an area of 35 hectares. The company delivers professional turf solutions to most major league clubs in the country.