Emami to go national with edible oil, plans investment of up to Rs 400 crore

Emami Biotech, part of the Kolkata-based Emami Group, is planning to go national with its edible oil brand, Healthy and Tasty. The company is looking to set up a third refining facility in West India to expand its presence. Its current daily refining capacity is 3,600 tonnes across two locations. The Haldia refinery in West Bengal has a capacity of 2,200 tones while the Krishnapatnam refinery in Andhra Pradesh has a capacity to refine 1,400 tones of edible oil.*

"We plan to set up a new refining unit with a capacity of 1,500 tonnes per day in West India. We are looking at options. This may require investment of Rs 250-300 crore," said Aditya Agarwal, Director, Emami. Agarwal said the company also plans to invest Rs 100 crore in building the edible oil brand over the next three years.

The company's edible oil has a presence in states like West Bengal, Jharkhand, Bihar, North Eastern states, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu. It also has a part presence in Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra. The company caters to bulk and retail buyers and its edible oil business clocked revenues of Rs 3,253 crore in the last fiscal, up 22 per cent from the previous year.

Agarwal said the company launched its brand in West Bengal in 2010 and has already become the second largest in the state after the Fortune brand (of Adani Wilmar) according to the ORG Survey for January-March 2014. Our brands will grow a lot and we will go national in the next 3 to 5 years, he said.

Apart from palm and soya oil the company also manufactures other oil varieties like sun flower, mustard, rice bran and vanaspati besides other blended oils. Emami also launched edible oil sachets in denominations of Rs 5 and Rs 10 denominations to enable households to embrace the product and graduate into larger packs.

*In an earlier version, the figures relation to Emami's edible oil refining capacity were incorrect. These have been corrected.