BAT and NutriS Win Lider Invest Award for Best Large Investment

Companies BAT and NutriS are the recipients of the ‘100 percent Lider Invest 2022’ award in the category of best large manufacturing investments. The awards were presented at today’s ceremony ‘Lider Invest – Selection of the Best Large, Medium, and Small Manufacturing Investments in Croatia’, organized by Lider.

With an investment worth a total of 600 million kuna in new production lines at the factory in Kanfanar, BAT secured the 100 percent Lider Invest award in the category of large investments. It invested more than nine million kuna in training employees for the production of heated tobacco products, employed nearly seventy people, and is also creating additional jobs. Kanfanar is one of four factories in Europe where employees work on the production of such products.

The company NutriS invested more than 220 million kuna in the first European hybrid factory for the production of protein, starch, and fiber isolates. Its mission is to position Croatia as one of the key players in the plant-based food industry, based on a nutritional, innovative, and sustainable platform. Already in its first year of operation, NutriS established cooperation with 250 farmers, with the ambition to expand the network to a thousand family farms by 2025.

The company Hartman Paper Packaging won the award for the best medium manufacturing investment. This project involves increasing production capacities in Croatia, which includes the purchase of a building and the installation of two new production lines for the production of egg trays with presses. By increasing production capacity, investments are also made in expanding and modernizing the printing space. The total investment amount is 98.5 million kuna.

Awards for small investments were given to the companies Applied Ceramics and Amplifico.

As part of the third investment cycle worth a total of 2.5 million euros, the company Applied Ceramics implemented the project ‘Expansion of Industrial Sapphire Production Capacity’, valued at seven million kuna. Applied Ceramics invested in the adaptation, expansion, and equipping of production halls and the purchase of new production units for industrial sapphire production, which increased sapphire production capacity by 400 percent. The entire production of industrial sapphire is intended for export.

The company Amplifico invested in a production line for smart parking products Parklio. This company creates products in Croatia that are sold in more than 45 countries worldwide.

The Export Lider Invest award for the investment that contributed the most to exports was awarded to the company Ferro – Preis, while the Employee Lider Invest award for the investment that contributed the most to employment was awarded to the company EMPWR.

The recipient of the ECO Lider Invest award for the investment that contributed the most to sustainable development and the quality of life of citizens, as well as the protection of space and the environment, is the company Ericsson Nikola Tesla.

The special award from the expert jury – the Slavko Krajcar award for technological innovations was awarded to the companies S+B Systemtechnik and CNC Metal.

The editor-in-chief of Lider, Miodrag Šajatović, emphasized that the Lider Invest project was born ‘out of spite because, unfortunately, in Croatia, those in industry, production, and exports have been pushed to the background for years.’