BackITC planning to invest Rs10,000 crore in food processing over 5-7 years
ITC's investment is part of the firm's plan to spend about Rs25,000 crore on 65 projects, including 20 integrated factories for consumer goods, across the country
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New Delhi: ITC Ltd, the diversified cigarettes-to-shampoo company that also has a presence in packaged foods, will invest Rs10,000 crore in food processing over the next five-seven years, Sanjiv Puri, its chief executive officer, said on Friday.
The investment is part of ITC’s plan to spend about Rs25,000 crore on 65 projects, including 20 integrated factories for consumer goods, across the country.
The company’s goal is to generate Rs1 trillion from non-cigarette packaged goods by 2030, of which Rs65,000 crore will come from packaged foods, Mint reported on 21 September.
Three of the planned 20 factories will be operational over the next one year. At these facilities, ITC will manufacture branded food products including Aashirvaad atta, Sunfeast biscuits, YiPPee! noodles, Bingo! snacks, B Natural juices, and processed fruits and vegetables, the company said in a statement.
Among ITC’s existing portfolio of packaged food products, Ashirvaad atta is the highest revenue earner at Rs3,500 crore, followed by biscuit brand Sunfeast, which has crossed Rs3,000 crore.
“With a population of 1.3 billion, India’s consumption market is projected to triple to $4 trillion by 2025 with the bulk of expenditure going into food products. Improvement in agricultural yields and increase in the level of processing from the current 10% to 30% can increase the GDP by as much as fivefold," said Puri.
“ITC, with a strong legacy of working closely with the farmers and a vision to be the largest food and consumer products company in India, is well placed to make a strong contribution towards this transformation story of the country’s food processing sector," he added.
Earlier Puri had said that the company was working on an eight-point strategy to reinvent itself and accelerate growth in its non-cigarette businesses, especially branded consumer packaged foods, a segment it entered 15 years ago, Mint reported on 12 September.
ITC expects to multiply its branded foods business backed by its fruits and vegetables business—a segment it entered on Thursday with fresh packaged potato under a new brand Farmland. The company plans to launch at least one new product every quarter.
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