Poultry industry eyes branded eggs sector

The concept of branded eggs is slowly gaining currency, but the supply shortage has led to their prices surging by 75 per cent in the last two years, industry officials said.

"There is a potential in the branded egg segment, which has a premium in market," Gurgaon-based Keggfarms' Chairman Vinod Kapoor told PTI. Kapoor, who pioneered the branded egg concept in Delhi, said that the demand is too high to be met by his farm.

The prices of branded eggs have gone up to Rs 70 per dozen from Rs 40 a dozen during the last two years, he said, adding that Delhi consumes about 35 lakh eggs daily.

The National Egg Coordination Committee Chairman (Northern Region) Harish Juneja said the branded egg concept is slowly growing and "it has a future".

However, the costs of packaging and commission are too high to reduce the retail price of branded eggs, he added.

Kapoor said the eggs, sold under Keggfarm brand, are different as they are organic and contain more proteins.

He plans to hive off the branded egg business from other poultry activities like manufacturing poultry vaccines and producing chicks for rural households.

Kapoor said he had developed a business model, which focuses solely on rural India. "We sell chicks to mother units in 11 states, mostly in Eastern India, from where vendors take 2-3 months old chickens and sell to villagers, who were earlier rearing 'desi' (local) birds".

Impressed by the Keggfarms' business model, a 50-member team of students from Harvard Business School visited Kapoor's poultry farm in Gurgaon yesterday.

Unlike in the commercial poultry, the same bird produced in the Keggfarms is used for both meat and laying of eggs.

"Ours bird can lay over three times more eggs than a desi chicken and their meat is even tastier than broilers'," Kapoor said. The chicken produced by Keggfarms looks similar to the local birds.

However, Juneja noted that in commercial farm, the chicken lay as many as 300-325 eggs per year.

Kapoor said villagers need not have to spend much for feed as Keggfarms' chicken can be maintained with limited feed produced (food wastages) in household. Besides, he said no infrastructure like sheds is required to keep the birds.

The enterprising businessman recently distributed 470 chicks in a village, 60 km off Gurgaon, to all households on a pilot project in order to acquaint the villagers with the advantages of rearing the 'Kurolier', a term coined by Kapoor for his chicken.

"We hope to get more (money) as these birds are said to lay 120 eggs compared to 20-25 by a desi chicken," Rehman Khan of Manakki village said.

Daniel J Isenberg, a senior lecturer at Harvard Business School, who led the team of students to Kapoor's farm, said he was fascinated with the business model developed by Keggfarms as it is only focused on rural India involving stakeholders such as villagers, vendors and women.

The Keggfarms targets to increase the sale of Kurolier to two crore in 2008 from the current level of 1.7 crore, Kapoor said, adding that he aims to cover 10 lakh rural households by the end of this year.

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FARM DESIGN

The branded egg concept is slowly growing and "it has a future"

Prices of branded eggs have gone up to Rs 70 per dozen from Rs 40 a dozen during the last two years

Following the success of Keggfarm brand, a Harvard Business School team visited the Gurgaon poultry farm