Nestlé India to invest Rs 4,200 crore by 2025 to ramp up capacity

Nestlé India, the country’s leading food and beverages major, has unveiled its next big step towards strengthening its manufacturing base by announcing a plan to invest Rs 4,200 crore till 2025.

“Between 2020 and the first half of 2023 we have invested Rs 2,130 crore to augment our manufacturing capabilities. About a third of it went into the food space. Another third has gone into the chocolates and confection. And the balance has gone into nutrition and beverages and other categories. Now, another Rs 4,200 crore will spent from 2023 to 2025, including setting up of a new plant in Odisha against Rs 900 crore,” said Suresh Narayanan, Chairman and Managing Director, Nestlé India.

According to him, the company has invested some Rs 7,000 crore between setting up its first plant in Moga, Punjab, in early-1960s and 2020. “So, what we are investing between 2020 and 2025 is nearly equal to our investments over the previous 60 years. This indicates where India stands (for Nestlé) and the company’s (recent) performance,” he added.

Last week, after BT reported about Nestlé India’s plans to set up new plant, the company informed its investors that it is coming up with the tenth plant in India in Odisha’s Khurda district near the state capital Bhubaneswar. The company has already secured approval from the State Level Single Window Clearance Authority. The Odisha plant will be primarily focused on manufacturing Maggi products. Nestlé India set up its ninth plant in Sanand, Gujarat, last year with an investment of over Rs 700 crore to ramp the local production of its hot-selling Maggi instant noodles.

According to Narayanan, with demand growing faster, apart from the new Odisha plant, a significant part of the new investments will go into expanding capacity of the Gujarat plant with new production lines, for noodles and confectionaries, expansion of its Moga factory, and ramping up of chocolate manufacturing capacity at its Ponda (Goa) facility.

“There two types of capex, primarily. One is for compliance and the other is for capacity expansion. Ours is more of capacity expansion,” he said, adding that a plant in Odisha was the need of the hour as Nestlé does not have any manufacturing facility in the eastern part of the country. All its nine existing plants are spread across North, West and South India.