Keventer Agro Ltd. (KAL), part of the Rs.11.5 billion Keventer group, Tuesday said it was setting up an ice-cream plant in Malda and a cold storage near Siliguri in West Bengal.
The plant in Malda, to be used for manufacturing ice-cream and frozen dessert, will have an initial capacity of 36.5 lakh litres per year, while the cold storage near Siliguri will have an annual capacity of 5,500 tonnes. The cold storage will also have facility to ripen bananas.
"As a company, we see enormous opportunity in north Bengal due to its strategic location as the 'Gateway to the northeast', and also due to abundant availability of agri-resources like mangoes, oranges and pineapples.
"With our expertise in food processing and marketing, we shall be able to provide the best quality and freshest products to the people of the region," the company's managing director Mayank Jalan said.
The company said although more than 6.71 lakh farmers in West Bengal produce about 1.08 million tonnes of bananas every year, a lot of fruit goes waste because of lack of scientific cultivation, ripening and preservation techniques and the cold storage cum ripening centre will try to address this issue.
"Since the past seven years, by regularly selling their produce to Keventer Agro, more than 5,000 farmers in Nadia, Hooghly and North 24 Parganas have seen their income go up and have benefitted from the committed offtake and 24-hour payment cycle," the company said.
To ripen the bananas, KAL will use ethylene - considered to be the safest and healthiest method of ripening fruits - instead of carbide which is known to have unhealthy side-effects.
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"Bananas are known to have many health benefits, but improper ripening facilities affect the quality and ultimately people's health," said Jalan.
"Now you will be able to get the most nutritious and safest bananas in north Bengal. You will just need to check for bananas having our 'Keventer Fresh' logo. That is our guarantee for good health and will be available at your nearest market and even at your neighbourhood fruit stall. We are already supplying more than 20 percent of Kolkata's requirement from our Barasat centre," he added.