Ladakh Foods eyes 400% growth in sales this fiscal

Ladakh Foods Ltd, a Rs five crore public limited company, eyes a turnover growth of over 400 per cent in the current financial year.

The company is formed in 2002 through equity participation from the Small Farmers' Agricultural Consortium and the National Agricultural Federation (Nafed), a government body.

The company, makers of Leh Berry Seabuckthorn fruit juice, has entered the Rs 120 crore fruit variants market by launching two new flavours "" Leh Peach Apple and Leh Fruit Mix.

With the launch of these flavours, the company eyes a turnover of Rs 20 crore by the end of the current financial year compared with around Rs five crore last year.

"We aim to become a Rs 100 crore company in the next five years. In the first year of operation, we reported a turnover of around Rs five crore. We are targeting Rs 50 crore in the next two years and Rs 100 crore in the next five years," H S Kukreja, general manager, sales and marketing, Ladakh Foods, said.

The company has technical collaboration with the Defence Research and Development Organisation.

The company has entered into third party manufacturing agreement with Godrej Foods Products, the foods division of Godrej Industries Ltd, for 10 years for packaging of the processed berries in tetra packs at its plant in Bhopal.

The berries are plucked for six weeks during July-mid September and processed at the company's plant at Ladakh. After this, the pulp is transported and stored at the cold storage of Nafed in New Delhi and then finally send for processing at Godrej's plant in Bhoplal.

The company's plant in Ladakh with an installed processing capacity of over 2,000 tonnes of Seabuckthorn fruit juice was set up with an investment of Rs five crore and the company has achieved break-even in the first year of its operation.

Over 50 per cent of the company's turnover comes from supplying Leh berry to the army as part of rations to troops deployed in high-altitude areas and supplying to various defence stores across the country.

The company aims to enter into exports and targets to achieve over 50 per cent of its turnover from exports as Seabuckthorn fruit juice has a huge demand in the international markets.

"Apart from India, Russia, China and Germany are the only countries where seabuckthorn is available. Germany is the only country which cultivates these berries. We are the only company in the world that makes juice from seabuckthorn. Oil extracted by the seeds of seabuckthorn is sold at Rs 12,000 a kg in the international markets," said Kukreja.

The company plans to strengthen marketing and has tied up with Air Sahara and Alliance Airlines to introduce the juice on board. It is in talks with other airlines and the Railways to introduce the juice in their services.

The company plans to spend over four per cent of its turnover on advertisements.