Heritage Foods inks pact with French yogurt maker

Dairy producer Heritage Foods Ltd has inked a 50:50 joint venture with France-based Novandie SNC to produce and market fruit and flavoured yogurt as well as western style dessert in India. The venture will set up a greenfield plant with a capacity of 20 tonnes per day at an estimated capital outlay of Rs 16 crore. The plant is set to commence commercial production in 2018.

The board of directors of the company has proposed sub division of existing one equity share of the company of face value Rs 10 each into two numbers of equity shares of face value of Rs 5 each, subject to the approval of the shareholders. This will improve the liquidity of the company's shares on the stock market.

As a part of the composite scheme of arrangement, Future Retail Ltd has allotted 17.85 million equity shares of Rs 2 each as a consideration for transfer/sale of the retail business.

"The joint venture with Novandie, leading yogurt player in France is one of the major steps we have taken on the path to achieve Rs 6000 crore revenues by 2022," said Nara Brahmani, executive d0irector, Heritage Foods.

Meanwhile, Reliance Dairy business has also integrated with Heritage Foods, Brahmani said.

The seasonal increase in procurement cost of milk and new re-branding initiatives of the company contributed to low profit during the quarter. However, the significant increase in our revenues after our rebranding initiative across India would result in good profit growths during the rest of year.