The Rs 2000-crore SPS Group, with interests in steel, hotels and biscuits among other things, has taken over a potato flakes project set up by Apurba Saha’s Pailan group, another diversified outfit that is into education, aviation, township development and food processing.
Bipin Kumar Vohra, chairman and managing director of the SPS Steel & Power Ltd, said the two groups have made an alliance that is a “win-win” for both — while Vohra is already into industry, Saha can focus on his core business of education.
“We have taken a 55% stake in the Ascon Agro,” Vohra said, referring to the Pailan group company that runs the flakes unit, a 100% export-oriented unit (EOU) at Dhaniakhali in Hooghly district.
While the stake itself will cost around Rs 4 crore, SPS plans to build a meat processing plant next to the flakes unit and then acquire around 70 acres at the same location which it will develop and promote as a food processing park.
The total investment would add up to nearly Rs 175 crore, with Rs 100-crore for developing the food park and Rs 40 crore for the meat unit.
Ascon Agro will now de-merge the marine college and education business. However, Vohra said he has not considered the pineapple processing for which Ascon had tied up with an Italian major recently.
Saha said the pineapple unit has been allotted land, and has a buyback deal with Italy’s AFL Perma.
While the potato flakes unit, inaugurated in October last year, has just begun trial production, the pineapple unit is on the drawing board.
The potato flakes unit can churn out 7-8,000 tonne per annum working at three shifts. Potato flakes are used to make snacks like Pringles, in burger patties and even as a thickening agent in soups and bakery products.
It takes 6kg of potatoes to make 1kg of flakes, so the plant could consume up to 42,000 tonne of potatoes a year running at three shifts.
In the next stage, SPS would build a multipurpose cold storage with a capacity of 50,000 tonne of potatoes and 6,000 tonne of vegetables and even milk.