Multinationals buy from Barba Stathis | eKathimerini.com

Nov 02, 2024

By the end of June 2025, frozen vegetables market leader Barba Stathis will have finalized its agreements with two large multinational companies for which the Greek company will undertake to produce plant-based protein products.

The two multinationals remain unnamed for now.

The upcoming agreements, as well as the more intense export orientation that the company wants to adopt in the coming years, will be supported by the new production unit whose construction is planned in Larissa, where today the company – a subsidiary of the Vivartia group – already has warehouses. The new unit, combined with the investments in automation that Barba Stathis has implemented in recent years, will lead to a doubling of its production.

The new unit will be created on the premises where the Froza company operated 30 years ago. It was later absorbed by Barba Stathis. It is an area of 50,000 square meters in which the company currently maintains storage areas with a total area of 14,000 sq.m., which will continue to exist even after the addition of the new factory.

The choice of Larissa has been made not only because there are available facilities there, but also because the goal of increasing production requires large areas for the cultivation of raw materials, especially in terms of frozen vegetables, but also plant-based products.

As far as the latter category is concerned, Barba Stathis is also investing in its own brand products. Therefore, after its vegetable “meatballs” in various recipes, the company is preparing to launch two of the most traditional Greek recipes – pastitsio and moussaka – which will contain vegetable-based minced “meat,” in the coming period.

As the managing director of the company, Nikitas Pothoulakis, reveals to Kathimerini, at the beginning of 2025 an investment program of 20 million euros will be implemented, followed by a new three-year investment program of €30 million.

Nowadays the company has two production units at Sindos in Thessaloniki as well as at Riza in Edessa, which it acquired after the acquisition of 80% of Halvatzis Makedoniki at the end of 2023.