NOVOSIBIRSK, SIBERIA — PepsiCo, Inc. has broken ground on a new snacks processing plant in Novosibirsk, the company’s third salty snacks plant in Russia. The new facility will make Lay’s chips and Khrus Team croutons and will have an expected capacity of more than 60,000 tonnes, PepsiCo said. The company said it is investing approximately 12 billion rubles ($160 million) in the plant. The first two production lines of the plant are expected to be operational by the end of 2021, PepsiCo said.

“The region has created favorable conditions for the work of large foreign investors,” said Neil Sturrock, president of PepsiCo Russia, Belarus, Ukraine, Caucasus and Central Asia. “Despite the objective difficulties caused by the pandemic, we plan to build and launch a new enterprise on time. The new plant will be built in accordance with the principles of PepsiCo — it will be as energy efficient as possible; modern environmental standards will be introduced here, including for waste disposal. To provide the plants with the necessary raw materials, our agricultural team is already working on the development of the raw material base of our future suppliers.”

PepsiCo also said it will introduce an agricultural program in the region aimed at providing the new plant with local potatoes. All Lay’s potato chips in Russia are made exclusively from potatoes grown in the country, PepsiCo said.