Nitta Gelatin India Limited (NGIL) will commission its new plant, meant for producing Limed Ossein, at Jhagatia industrial area in Gujarat by March 2011. This will be the fourth unit of the Kochi-based company, to be set up with an investment outlay of Rs 30 crore.
The company has two plants in Kerala, at Koratty and Kakkanad, and another at Nagpur in Maharashtra, where it produces gelatin, ossein and collagen peptide, which are used as nutrional supplements.
Addressing a press conference here on Wednesday, G Suseelan, managing director, NGIL, said the company planned to strengthen its marketing activity and set a sales target of Rs 500 crore by 2014-15. It would set aside Rs 185 crore to meet this target, mainly through diversifying the product portfolio and capacity expansion.
NGIL plans to launch its latest product, Collagen Peptide, under the brand name CollagenPep, in the southern states starting with Tamil Nadu. By April 2011, this would be launched in major metros of the country, to be followed by rest of the country. It projected a revenue of Rs 50 crore from the sale of CollagenPep by 2012-13.
The company introduced the new product, a functional food supplement for knee pain and osteoarthritis in the Kerala market in June and expected to sell about 17,000 jars a month in the first year. But due to the overwhelming response seen in the the market, NGIL has increased its production by 3-4 times, and sales touched 25,000 in July alone.
Suseelan said that NGIL would soon introduce more products in the functional foods category for improving the bone strength mainly targeting women above 40. The product development process was in the final stages and clinical trials would be commenced by October. The new product is expected to be launched in April next year.
The company is also working on a number of products including for wound care and nutritional supplements for sports persons under the Gelixir brand.
Q1 net sharply down
The net profit of NGIL in April-June quarter of 2010-11 has dropped by 73.15 per cent to Rs 1.63 crore as against Rs 6.07 crore in the same period last year. Net income has increased by 8.72 per cent to touch Rs 46.12 crore during this quarter from Rs 42.42 crore in the corresponding quarter last year.
Suseelan said that due to reduction in meat exports and scarcity, price of crushed bones, the company's main raw material, had increased by around 25 per cent. Hydrochloric acid prices have also doubled. This caused the sharp fall in the net profit in Q1.
Promoted by Kerala State Industrial Development Corporation (KSIDC) in collaboration with Nitta Gelatin Inc, Japan, the company is the leading manufacturer of gelatin, ossein, dicalcium phosphate and collagen peptide. The company is expecting a net profit of Rs 20 crore in 2010-11 as against Rs 24.5 crore in 2009-10.
