Camlin Fine Chemicals in JV talks with US company

Camlin Fine Chemicals, a large producer of food preservatives, is in talks with Kemin Industries of the US to form a joint venture for manufacturing and marketing speciality food ingredients.

Kemin is a large nutritional ingredient company with operations spread across the pharmaceutical, nutraceutical, food, agro-food and pet food business in over 60 countries.

“We are talking to Kemin. It can be a joint venture or a strategic marketing alliance. We have the manufacturing strength and Kemin has reach all over the world. We hope to announce the alliance within one or two months,” said Ashish Dandekar, managing director, Camlin Fine Chemicals.

The speciality food ingredients market is valued at about $500 million and the joint partners would target a turnover of $5-7 million in the first year of operations, he added.

At present, Camlin Fine Chemicals is the world’s largest manufacturer of food-grade, anti-oxidants such as TBHQ and BHA, with annual sales of 3,000 and 2,000 tonnes respectively. More than 70 per cent of its revenues come from food anti-oxidants.

Dandekar added that Camlin has ventured into the sweeteners and nutraceuticals business. It has developed an artificial sweetener, Sucralose, which Camlin’s US subsidiary DulcetteTechnologies sells in the US, Canada and Mexico.

It has also formed Chemolutions Chemicals, a joint venture with Advanced Aerospace Technologies of the US, which is into product development and contract manufacturing of speciality ingredients for other companies.

Camlin Fine Chemicals, which was demerged from the writing instruments- and art material-maker Camlin about two years ago, has an integrated manufacturing complex with eight plants in Tarapur, Maharashtra.

The company is also planning to invest over Rs 15 crore to set up manufacturing units in Khopoli near Mumbai.

The company has targeted a turonver of over Rs 110 crore during the year, Dandekar said.