Croatia's Koka opens €20 million Varaždin hatchery with capacity for 45 million chicks a year

Koka d.o.o., Croatia's leading poultry company, has presented a new high-technology hatchery in Varaždin, an investment of €20 million financed entirely from the company's own funds. According to Varaždinske vijesti and Glas Istre, the plant covers more than 7,000 square metres, of which more than 5,000 square metres is production floor, and its planned capacity across two phases reaches 45 million day-old chicks a year.

Thirty thousand eggs an hour

The automated sorting and stacking system processes 30,000 eggs an hour. Jutarnji list reports that the new hatchery operates with a workforce of 39. SEEbiz describes the facility as the largest and technologically most advanced hatchery in Croatia.

The Varaždin site is among the first in the world equipped with SmartSense technology, which allows incubation conditions to be monitored and adjusted. Roman Merkaš, Koka's management board member for production, said the plant also uses SmartControl for centralised supervision and process management, and described the hatchery as a significant technological step for the company's production system that delivers precision, uniformity and control in one of the most important stages of production.

SEEbiz reports that the hatchery was equipped in cooperation with Royal Pas Reform and the Vencomatic Group (Prinzen) of the Netherlands. The same source says the investment is aligned with the European Union's green transition goals through lower greenhouse gas emissions, optimised energy use and reduced environmental impact.

From parent flocks to the shelf

The hatchery sits inside what the company describes as the only chicken meat production system in Croatia with its own egg supply for hatching. Koka is the only Croatian chicken meat producer with its own parent farms, meaning the chain begins a generation before the broiler chick. SEEbiz notes that grandparent farms elsewhere have been taken over by global breeding houses, leaving Koka as the only domestic producer with that depth of chain. The company says the link between domestic production, processing and distribution allows fresh Cekin chicken to move from farm to shelf within 24 hours, with traceability from the parent farms to the finished product.

Stjepan Sabljak, president of Koka's management board, said the company has been building and developing Croatian poultry farming for 65 years and called the hatchery one of the most important investments in its recent history, pointing to domestic food production, self-sufficiency and the competitiveness of the Croatian food industry. He cited the Zlatna bilanca 2026 award as further confirmation of stable growth. The chain, he said, runs from the company's own feed and certified antibiotic-free rearing through to meat processing and the product on the shelf.

Croatia's poultry self-sufficiency gap

SEEbiz sets the investment against a decline in national supply. Since Croatia joined the European Union, self-sufficiency in poultry meat has fallen from 81% to 73%, a result of lower production combined with higher demand and higher consumption of poultry meat. Over the same period the number of livestock fell by 58% and breeding animals by 48%, according to the same source, while poultry production grew by 18%. SEEbiz frames new investment as the key to raising self-sufficiency in the poultry sector.

A wider modernisation cycle

The hatchery is one element of a broader investment programme at Koka reported by Varaždinske vijesti, Glas Istre and Jutarnji list:

• €1.2 million in a new line for minced chicken meat, ćevapi and pljeskavice;
• €6.5 million in a new line for breaded products;
• operations at more than 30 locations, with products placed on 13 export markets.

Cekin is the leading chicken brand on the Croatian market, and Koka presents the current cycle of investment as a way to expand that range while strengthening domestic production and export competitiveness.