Snapshots of Food Industry News
Government launches scheme for small food processing clusters
Food Processing Minister, Harsimrat Kaur Badal, has said that the government is planning to launch schemes for the development of small and medium scale processing clusters called SAMPADA. These clusters will be located at places that are close to the areas of specific farm produce. The scheme will focus on developing agro –processing clusters that will enable farmers to utilise their agricultural produce. The government is also planning on value addition and preservation of food for which they will provide assistance to 100 new cold chain projects in the near future by inviting expression of interest. Speaking at Sagar the Food Processing Minister was highlighting the achievements of the Narendra Modi government. She said that they had sanctioned 37 Mega Food Parks. Out of these 8 food parks are operational and 6 of which have become operational under the present government. She further said that the government is committed to prevent food wastage and therefore they are increasing the processing capacity by creating the desired infrastructure for processing, preservation and storage of food.
Shakti Milk to expand operations with 180 crore investment
Coimbatore based business conglomerate, Shakti Group, will invest Rs.180 crore in the next three years to expand their dairy division as there has been a sharp increase in demand for milk and milk products. The milk division is part of their ABT Industries and they will use the investment to ramp up milk production from 4 lakh litres a day to 10 lakh litres a day along with value added products. The company’s flagship product is ghee that is sold all over the country and they mean to increase the production of ghee from 70 tonnes to 240 tonnes a month.
Presently their supply of milk is limited to Kerala and Tamil Nadu which is made available from their Pollachi plant. ABT Industries intend to increase their supply of milk to Bengaluru and so will set up a plant at Krishnagiri which is closer to Bengaluru. This year the company aims to use Rs.30 crore of the investment in setting up a modern product factory to increase production of value added products like yoghurt, paneer, cheese, flavoured milk, ice-cream and some Indian sweets. They also plan to set up a facility for the production of ultra-high temperature (UHT) milk. To increase their milk distribution capacity ABT industries will also set up milk packaging units, two of which will be in Kerala. This move is likely to increase the production from their dairy division from 25 to 35 percent.
K Hospitality Corp to take Indian cuisine to international audience
Copper Chimney, the flagship and award winning Indian restaurant which is a part of K Hospitality Corp is going international. They have already launched two outlets in Kuwait and will be launching another two stores as the outlets are popular and the company is likely to concentrate on the MENA region. K Hospitality Corp has through its international subsidiary, signed up a 5 store development deals for the UAE with Emirates International Group (EIG). The stores will open over a period of 4 years, with 2 stores expected to launch in 2016-17. EIG is part of the Emirates Business Group which is one of the leading holding companies in the UAE. K Hospitality’s international expansion will be through company owned as well as franchised stores.
Copper Chimney was established in 1972 and was one of the first Indian restaurants to have an open show kitchen where they would toss handmade rotis in front of the guests. Now it aims to use its experience of 40 years to take its signature cooking techniques and secret recipes to an international audience. Today K Hospitality Corp is amongst one of the largest conglomerates in the F&B sector with a dominant presence across major verticals including hospitality, food services and travel retail.
T’Pot Café to open 30 more outlets and specialise in ‘chai-nashta’ segment
T’Pot Café is in expansion mode and will be opening two new outlets at the World Trade Tower and Sector 125 in Noida. They serve wide variety of herbal teas, white teas, black teas and iced teas. Based on the COCO model the company plans to take their score of outlets to 50 this year and have no franchise plans. The start-up café chain has been able to garner funding from the founder and trustee of Ashoka University and Co-founder of Evalueserve, Ashish Gupta which they will use for expansion and to introduce new products related to tea. The funds have been made available by Gupta as he feels that T’Pot Cafe is likely to create a niche for themselves.
By next year T’ Pot will have a multi-city launch and are also expected to go in for packaged tea and refreshments that can be enjoyed at home. They are also aiming to attract office going customers from the unorganised ‘Chai-Nashta’ segment especially in Delhi/NCR region. The offerings being made will enable T’Pot to be a part of health and wellness market in India. They aim to sell half a million cups of tea a month by December 2016. They are mostly located in areas where there are higher footfalls of young people as well as airports, metros, railway stations and corporate houses for this reason.
London Dairy aims for Rs.100 crore revenue
London Dairy, the premium ice-cream brand that entered India three years ago, is aiming to double its revenues to Rs.100 crore by 2020. They mean to achieve this by increasing their distribution to 5000 outlets from the present 2000 outlets. They have so far been successful in building the premium ice-cream category and have managed a growth of 36 percent year on year. According to industry experts the frozen desserts category is growing at 15-20 percent annually whereas the share in the global market is 5 percent. They will also begin manufacture ice-creams in India in the next three years.
London Dairy products are manufactured under license from London Dairy Company and are imported into India from the UAE based International Foodstuffs Company. London Dairy focuses on direct distribution through branded freezers. Last year the company saw a slowdown because the strict FSSAI import regulations. International brands were being strictly monitored especially in terms of requirements for display of ingredients and packaging and labelling. It took the company some time to comply with these regulatory requirements so the company introduced 46 stock keeping units for the Indian markets.
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