Nestle Purina has opened a new, CHF93 million (US$96.2 million) petfood factory in southwest Poland to help meet rising demand in central Europe.

The new plant is located in Wroclaw and is the first Purina petfood factory in Poland.

“Poland is the biggest petfood market in Central and Eastern Europe. Nestle has been present on the Polish market with its pet products for 16 years,” said Jose Ignacio Lopezmalo Perezcarpy, head of Nestle Polska, Purina Division.

Initially, the new unit will manufacture cat food, mainly for the German market. Purina claims that 90 percent of the ingredients for production will come from Polish suppliers.

“It is very important for us to care for the environment, create jobs and support Polish suppliers, while we are doing our business,” Perezcarpy said. “This policy is what we call creating shared value.”

 The factory will employ 250 people, and the company plans to invest an additional CHF44 million by the end of 2015 to build additional capacity at the facility.