The world's largest food processing and packaging solutions firm, Tetra Pak, Tuesday opened a Rs.700 crore ($127.27 million) production facility in India, aiming to capitalise on the modernising retail business in Asia's third largest economy as it liberalises overseas investment norms.
Through the new production facility located at Chakan, Pune, nearly 150 km from the country's commercial capital Mumbai, Tetra Pak also plans to export to South and Southeast Asia, and the Middle East.
After inaugurating the plant, Tetra Pak group president and chief executive officer Dennis Jonsson said the company was bullish on Indian market and plans to double the production capacity in the near future.
The new unit has the production capacity of 8.5 billion packages a year. This is the largest production unit of Tetra Pak outside Sweden and second largest globally.
The Swedish firm, now headquartered in Pully, Switzerland, started its operation in India in 1997, with opening a plant at Takwe, Pune.
"With the new unit, our production capacity will double to 8.5 billion packages a year. It can be further increased to 16 billion packages," said Jonsson, adding the company would enhance the capacity depending on the market conditions.
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He said the company targets 15-20 percent growth in its sales in India in the current year. The company's total sales in India is expected to cross Rs.1,000 crore ($182 million) in 2013.
Tetra Pak supplies its products to most of the countries and its global sales were 11.2 billion euro ($14.49 billion) in 2012.
Managing director of Tetra Pak for South Asia markets Kandarp Singh said the new facility spread over 45 acres of land, deploys latest technologies, which has minimum human interventions.
"Today's young urban consumer and the growing middle class are shaping and transforming the Indian good and beverage industry. Tetra Pak is ramping up its capacity to meet that growing demands," Singh said.