Agri and food processing major Keventer Agro, part of R1,800- crore diversified Keventer Group from West Bengal, has planned to expand its food processing business during next few years. The company is also setting up two food parks in Bihar and Orissa. Metro Dairy Milk, country?s first dairy project in public-private partnership, has emerged as the market leader in the dairy sector in entire eastern region. Mayank Jalan, Managing Director, Keventer Group spoke to FE?s Sandip Das on future plans. Excerpts:
Tell us about the investment plan of your company?
Bengal has been our home for years. We had slowed down our plans in the last couple of years but now we are looking afresh and are contemplating a R125 crore upgrade of our high tech food processing plant at Barasat (near Kolkata).We are also putting up the country?s most sophisticated food testing lab at Barasat in tie up with French firm Carso , a global food testing laboratory.
The 25 crore investment in the state will be used for setting up a testing laboratory. The Bengal laboratory which is to completed by September will be a 50:50 joint venture between Carso and Keventer.
Please explain about your company?s involvement in building food parks in Bihar and Orissa?
As part of the major expansion plan, we are setting up a Food park in the Bhagalpur district, along with Future Group as a co developer which will hold 35% stake. Land for the food park has already been acquired and work will commence in the next few weeks. Spread over 125 acres, the food park is being developed in partnership with the Future Group at an investment of R200 crore.
We will also be building R120 crore maize based unit to process starch, glucose and dextrose and a cattle feed plant in collaboration with Keenan Technologies of Ireland at Kahelgaon in Bihar Mega Food Park. We wish to set new benchmarks in our industry and ensure that India becomes a global food destination. We are confident that the current Food Park in Bihar alone will cater to the needs of over 20,000 farmers.
We wish to cater to the needs of the small and medium farmers across India and feel that developing the food parks will contribute to the development in the regions. In Orissa we would be a stake holder and look at setting up manufacturing units for our current and future products in the pipeline.
What areas are you looking in the near future?
Our two major focus areas will be Keventer Agro Food and Keventer Projects. Food will cover the gamut of farm to table and therefore fresh produce to finished product. In food, we are going to focus a lot on the confectionary and the dairy segment.Dairy is a big opportunity area where we are looking at getting to 2 million litres from the current 5 lakh litres capacity through acquisitions and green field projects. We are aiming at acquiring an outfit in the dairy sector to strengthen its presence in the segment, especially in northern India.