Kerala juice firm looks for business in foreign shores

The company, a medium-level player in the fruit processing business, has lined up two new ventures to be kicked off in the near future. In an interview with Business Standard, Suresh Mammen Thomas, manager (QA and P), NAPCL, said, "In the near term, we have planned to enter new businesses with an eye on a bigger market presence. One of them would be the setting up of a pack house, while the second would focus on foraying into the PET bottle segment."

"The pack house will be set up under a grant of Rs 3.65 crore from the Agricultural and Processed Food Products Export Development Authority (APEDA). The pack house would engage in the packing of farm-fresh pineapples, which would be later shipped by sea to the markets such as West Asia," Thomas added.

The pineapples would be directly procured from farmers from Muvattupuzha-Vazhakkulam in central Kerala.

"Our plan is to package processed mango juice in PET bottles. While we haven't looked at pine apples for this venture, mango juice in PET bottles will be available in the market after we go in for co-packaging deals with outside players within Kerala," Thomas said. The know-how and the infrastructure would be provided by the company and NAPCL is likely to go in for an investment of Rs 80 lakh at its bottling plant.

NAPCL, expects a turnover of Rs 13 crore this financial year. Thirty per cent stake in the company is owned by the government, while the rest is held by the farmers of the state.