Tetra India hopes to be in the black soon

Tetra Pak India Private Limited, the Swedish pioneer of production and packaging material for food products, is pinning hopes on the fast growing domestic market to help it turn the corner in the next two years. The company, which commenced its operations in India 17 years ago, recorded a turnover of Rs 280 crore for the last financial year.

Tetra India expects a growth of around 15 per cent for the current financial year and has recorded close to 10 per cent annual growth over the last decade.

With several new players coming up in the dairy and beverages sector, the future looks promising for the company and profitability is near, company managing director Henrik Hauggaard told Business Standard on the sidelines of a national meet on the dairy industry here today.

The company, at present, has an impressive list of 35 major clients including such major players as Nestle India, Britannia, Amul, Karnataka Milk Federation, AP Dairy, Mother Dairy, Parle Agro, Tropicana, Pepsi, Hindustan Coca Cola, Godrej, HLL and Dabur Foods.

It has undertaken a campaign to reach out to prospective clients across the country and is holding national-level conventions on the issues of its partners' interest.

Hauggaard said there was a perceptible change in the public preference for packaged foods in India and there was a 10-fold growth in the last decade.

The company is also on the look-out for new partners. In the process of making available to the consumers pure, fresh, hygienically packaged food products in better cost-efficient packages, it imports all the high-end process equipment.

Its Indian plant is located at Takwe, near Pune, and is on par with the best manufacturing sites abroad, the Tetra Pak India head said. A healthy economy growing at around eight per cent was throwing up new market opportunities for the company across the country, he explained.

With the economy looking up, the expansion projects of the existing partners is also turing out to be a major revenue-earner, Hauggaard said. He, however, voiced concern over the high incidence of duty structure in the country.

There was around 40 per cent import duty and 16 per cent counter vailing duty (CVD), making the equipment out of reach for the small-sized players, he observed.

Since no other company in the country has similar products, the company has been urging the central government for waiver of CVD and reduction in the import duty as well. This would benefit the food industry in the country where an enormous loss of food wastage occurs, he said.

On the environmental aspects, the Tetra Pak India head said that energy, water usage had been brought down significantly, and wastage at the plant was being completely recycled. The company is now firming up measures to help cut back on post-consumer wastage as well.

He said Tetra Pak's sister concern, DeLaval, was also working to improve the farming practices in the country. The company's activities encompass ensuring procurement of best raw materials, production processes as per global standards on the best equipment.