Alkem arm plans Rs 25 cr expansion

Alkem Health Foods, a subsidiary of pharmaceutical major Alkem Laboratories, is investing over Rs 25 crore to expand its nutraceuticals and lifestyle products manufacturing facilities.

"With this investment the company plans to launch eight new products in the domestic and international markets this year," said Sharad Kasalre, vice-president, Alkem Health Foods. The company had invested above Rs 80 crore to set up production units for nutraceuticals and lifestyle products at Mandwa near Baroda, Bhiwadi in Rajasthan and Baddi in Himachal Pradesh last year.

Products in the pipeline include health friendly sucralose jellies, oils and salts. It will soon launch a first of its kind innovative zero cholesterol and transfat free oil for cooking purposes, which will help the consumers reduce the risk of cardiovascular diseases.

The company also plans to launch salts with amino acid base, targeted primarily at people having high blood pressure. The azodials in the salts, to be made available in different flavours, have properties to dilate arteries and thus control blood flow to reduce risks associated with life style diseases.

He said the company started commercial sales three months ago and had launched a low-calorie, sugar-free ayurvedic health supplement Jeevanprash and a sugar substitute food addictive Fructo-Oligo Saccharides (FOS) under the brand name 'Majesta'. The company now has a network of 40,000 retail outlets and 500 distributors in different parts of the country.

Plans are to double the retail outlets to one lakh with 1000 distributors by the year-end. The company would launch own retail outlets at major metro cities within a year, he said.

Alkem Health Foods also commercially supplies FOS and sucralose to over 30 food processing companies. Alkem is in discussions with international food chains, hotels and various other institutions for supply of its products, said Sharad Kasalre.