Potato processing plant to come up in Punjab

India's first fully integrated potato-processing plant is coming up on the Nakodar-Jalandhar road in Punjab. The food-processing venture Satnam Agri Food Ltd is being promoted by NRI Mandip Singh and his associates.

Set up under a joint venture of the Punjab Agro Industries Ltd with 11 per cent equity and a funding of Rs 18.5 crore by the State Bank of India, the project will entail a total outlay of Rs 40 crore.

The plant will commence operations from January.

Project Advisor and Director Devender Dhand told Business Standard food processing in the plant would be done under three verticals.

Under the first vertical, frozen French fries will be prepared from potatoes. This will be a breakthrough in potato processing in the country because all the retail fast food chains in India import frozen French fries. Besides this, potato powder and potato flakes will be prepared.

Under the third vertical, vegetable freezing and seasoned vegetable processing will be done. The company plans to begin with frozen green peas because there is a shortfall of 45,000 tonnes of green peas per annum in the domestic market.

According to Dhand, the entire machinery for the state-of-the-art plant had been imported from Holland, Sweden, the US, Japan and Turkey.

The plant will have a capacity of processing 1 tonne French fries per hour, 500 kg of potato flakes per hour and 1,700 kg of vegetables per hour. With a 37 per cent of the cost being covered, the plant will utilise 60 per cent capacity in the first year.

"As we will remain confined to the domestic market in the first year, the company has decided to reserve capacity for the next year to source the global market," he said adding West Asia, Australia and Sri Lanka would be the main export destinations.

Well-known food technologists Naresh Maheshwari and S C Acharya lent their expertise in the completion of project.

Dhand was confident of meeting his target because all namkeen-makers in the country would need potato flakes and the retail fast food chains French fries. Since world-class technology was not available in the country, most of it was imported.

But Satnam Agri Food will supply the same quality at a lower price here. "Our market feedback gave us very encouraging response," said Dhand.