Tilaknagar Industries to step up focus on AP

Tilaknagar Industries Limited (TIL), producers of alcoholic beverages, is planning to step up its market presence in Andhra Pradesh (AP), and accordingly expand the capacity of its Rajahmundry plant at a cost of about Rs 80 crore.

TIL chairman and managing director, Amit Dahanukar, said that the bottling plant capacity would be expanded from the existing 50,000 cases to 400,000 cases a month in phases over a period of four years.

Addressing a press conference following a formal launch of Mansion House Gold Whisky here on Friday, Dahanukar said that the company had also obtained the license to set up a 100,000-case capacity greenfield distillery, which was estimated to cost Rs 150 crore. The new distillery would be located at Rajahmundry.

TIL deputy managing director, K Laxmi Narasimhan, said that AP accounted for 20 per cent of the company's total volumes and revenues. The company, which is a leader in the brandy segment, is expecting to capture 10 per cent of the whisky market in AP by the end of the next financial year. The market size of this segment is around 1.2 million cases.

According to Dahanukar, TIL had made investments to the tune of Rs 270 crore in the last couple of years to fuel its growth plans. It had acquired five Maharashtra-based companies in the last 10 days at a cost of Rs 3 crore.

“These acquisitions will help us integrate both forward and backward, besides strengthening in-house processes,” he said, adding that TIL was also exploring the possibility of forging a joint venture with a foreign liquor major.