The foray is aimed at catering to the food and beverage industry and will see the company setting up a new manufacturing plant in March 2009.
To be set up at Prantij taluka in Sabarkantha district, the company is banking on financial assistance from the Department of Biotech (DBT).
"We intend to start the submerged fermentation project before March 2009. The investment would be around Rs 15 crore. Of which, the government has already sanctioned Rs 10 crore and we would be investing the rest through internal accruals," said Piyush Palkhiwala, chairman, Maps India.
The existing plant at Prantij, which was shifted from Vatva, has a capacity of 1.5 tonnes per month, with the end product of 550-600 metric tonnes per month. "We are more volume-based than value-based.
The capacity of the fermenters for this plant would be 20,000 litre. We plan to use three enzymes