Bambino to tie up with universities

Hyderabad-based Bambino Agro Industries Limited, engaged in the production of vermicelli, pasta and instant foods, is tying up with a city-based university for conducting research in food technology and making nutritional products.

“We going to enter into a memorandum of understanding shortly with a Hyderabad-based university,” Bambino executive director, P Easwara Das, said, adding the company wanted to tie up with reputed universities and institutes for boosting its future growth plans.

Following reorientation of Bambino’s sales and distribution strategy, Das said the company registered a 100 per cent growth in sales in the past three years. It posted a turnover of Rs 220 crore for the 18 months period ending March 2008 and expects a turnover of Rs 270 crore in the current year..

According to Das, besides expanding its distribution network, the company has focused penetrating the rural markets. It had introduced an economical pack of vermicelli that cost just Rs 5 so as to bring its products within the reach of the rural consumer.

Stating that Bambino was set to emerge as a health food enterprise, he said the company would be launching two functional food (which have dietary components that provide a health benefit beyond basic nutrition) in 2010-11. Bambino's research and development team has developed the products, which would go for clinical trials in the next three months.

With manufacturing facilities near Hyderabad, Gurgoan and Nagpur, Das said Bambino not only had a pan India presence but also was exporting its products to the US, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Thailand, United Arab Emirates and parts of Europe. He, however, said the company's export turnover last year stood at just Rs 3 crore.