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Speaking to the reporters in the sidelines of the launch of "Salt of the Earth: The Story of Tata Chemicals" authored by Philip Chacko and Christabelle Noronha, R Mukundan, managing director of Tata Chemicals said that the production in the greenfield facility has started and an official launch is scheduled by the end of this month. The size of the relevant market the company is looking at would be $5-7 billion internationally, he added.
The company is in talks with various players in various parts of the world for exports of nutraceutical products and it would be primarily to the European and other Asian countries. Pharmaceutical companies are the buyers for these products.
Tata Group, which has its presence in real estate space did not invest in a big in manufacturing in Tamil Nadu, except for a plant for Titan, which has set up a manufacturing facility to manufacture personal accessories. Tata Group's Tata Steel Limited was planning to invest around Rs 2,000 crore to set up a titanium dioxide (TiO2) plant, but the project never became reality for various reasons.
The facility is manufacturing Fructo-oligosaccharides (FOS), a probiotic product, as a beginning and would have more products in future. The initial capacity of 1,000 tonnes was set up with an investment of Rs 50 crore and it is expected to be scaled up to 5,000 tonne in next three years and the total investment would be around Rs 150 crore. The plant, at its full capacity could generate a revenue of around Rs 300 crore in three years, he added.
Commenting on the company's strategy, he said that it will be focusing on the farm solutions and food products business.
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"Our current portfolio of branded and non-commodity business is 22 per cent. We would ideally want these products to go to at least 50 per cent in the next seven years," he said. Around Rs 4,500 crore of the company's Rs 7,000 crore business is in fertilisers at present. It has set up the Pune research facility with an idea to change from a chemical based company to biochemical and nanotech based company, he added.
The company, which has been selling salt across the country, has started selling pulses and dal to currently 40,000 stores mainly in North India and plans are to increase it to 1,00,000 stores by the year end and later bring it to the South Indian market. It is selling Chilli, Turmeric and Coriander along with other products under the Tata i-Shakti brand. The business of dal is currently at around Rs 100 crore, which would grow to over Rs 200 crore this year, while the seeds business under its subsidiary Metahelix Lifesciences is growing almost 80 per cent.
The company entered into the business as part of its Grow More Pulses programme, when the farmers said that they dont have a market sell the products. It is working with farmers in almost 87 per cent of the water scarce locations across the country. Besides pulses, it is also working with farmers to bring grapes, pomogranate, turmeric and ginger to the customers.
When asked whether the company would look at setting up a fertiliser facility in South India, especially Tamil Nadu, he said that the company does not see any opportunity for it, as the feed stock is not available and the company also decided not to go where there is a lots of subsidy. If the situation changes, the company would look at the options, he added. He said that for the customised fertiliser, from the company, there is an increase in demand this year, compared to previous years.
