One of the world's largest food producers — Kraft Heinz, the largest shareholders of which include Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway, has decided to increase its Russian capacities for the production of baby food. Kraft Heinz buys a baby food plant in Ivanovo.

A spokesperson of the Federal Antimonopoly Service has confirmed to Vedomosti that the buyer is a company, incorporated in the global Kraft Heinz. A Kraft Heinz spokesperson, Michael Mullen, said that “Kraft Heinz had no comments” about purchasing a Russian baby food manufacturer. There are negotiations on the sale of the plant, according to a representative of the Government of the Ivanovo region, who does not specify a status of the negotiations or a name of the buyer.

A petition of a Dutch company H.J. Heinz Global Holding B.V. to purchase 100% of the Russian firm was approved by the Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS), the regulator said in a statement.

Kraft Heinz has been established this year by the merger of Kraft Foods and Heinz. The combined company has become the third largest one in North America and the fifth food producer in the world with revenues reaching $28 billion. According to the website of Heinz’s Russian branch, the company has a plant in the Stavropol Krai, engaged in the production of cereals, and a plant in the Leningrad region (ketchups, sauces, spreads and mayonnaise).

Ivanovsky Baby Food Plant produces baby food under the brand “Umnitsa — fruit and vegetable purees, juices, cereals, according to the website. The company was manufacturing products under a contract with Heinz, a press release of AlfaStrakhovanie Group states (insured the plant’s civil liability under a contract with Heinz in March 2015). The plant’s products are exported to Belarus, Kazakhstan, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Mongolia, Turkmenistan.

Ivanovsky Baby Food Plant is a major regional manufacturer of baby food and a regional long-delayed construction site. The company went bankrupt in the 1990s, after that the property was on the region’s balance. In 2006, the Government of the Ivanovo region reported that the plant had found an investor, Slaveks. Then it was said that the plant’s capacities would reach 100 tons per day (20 tons of baby food, 80 tons — general purpose). In 2009, the Ivanovo City Administration named an entrepreneur Goran Vuković as a strategic investor of the plant.

In 2014, the Governor of the Ivanovo region, Pavel Konkov, said that investments in the plant amounted to 2.75 billion rubles ($42.3 million) between 2007 and 2014.