CP Foods India, the wholly-owned subsidiary of Thai agro-conglomerate CP Group, will be investing USD$500 million in the country through the next five years aiming to double turnover to Rs 7,000 crore. The company is also planning to set up four new poultry feed plants to cover different regions of the country.
The USD$50 billion Charoen Pokphand group will be pumping in $500 million into the farm, feed and quick service restaurant business in India. “The parent company will be funding 30 to 40 per cent of the investment while the rest will be through bank borrowings. The investment will help us double the business in the country,” said Sanjeev Pant, senior vice-president for food business at CP Foods India.
“Poultry meat consumption is growing at an annual rate of 10 per cent in India. The country consumes more than 95 per cent of 40 to 50 million birds produced every week. Our QSR format targets value conscious customers and with lower overheads on smaller store size and fully integrated supply chain, our fried chicken is priced much lower than the competition,” Pant said.
CP Foods will also be introducing packaged foods, fish and shrimp-based foods in its restaurants in two to three years.
“In other markets, customers are turning more towards fish as it is healthier than meat,” he said.
CP Foods is the third largest poultry producer in India after Suguna Foods and Venky’s. It produces two million birds a week. The company is also doubling its poultry feed production by setting up five new factories in Maharashtra, Punjab, Haryana and West Bengal. At present, there are seven manufacturing facilities in Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana. The production capacity will be doubled from 1.4 lakh tonnes a month to 3 lakh tonnes in five years. The company will also be able to cater all the regions of the country with the new facilities.
