Britannia Industries to invest Rs340 crore in new plant in Uttar Pradesh

NEW DELHI: Packaged foods company Britannia Industries Ltd on Friday said it has commenced work on its greenfield manufacturing facility in Barabanki, Uttar Pradesh. The plant to be set up across 30 acre, at an investment of Rs340 crore, will have an annual production capacity of 1.25 lakh tonne.

The company will make more of its flagship brands including Marie Gold, 5050, Good Day, Milk Bikis, Tiger Glucose and Rusk. This is Britannia’s first greenfield manufacturing facility in Uttar Pradesh.

"Uttar Pradesh is a large consumption market for us and this facility will help us meet the growing demand for bakery products in Uttar Pradesh, and will also create fairly large-scale employment opportunities," Varun Berry, managing director, Britannia Industries, said in a statement.

Britannia has been augmenting capacity amid growing demand for its bakery products and packaged foods that it said merits investments.

In October last year, Britannia had increased its planned investment for Tamil Nadu to ₹550 crore from ₹300 crore, over a period of seven years.

In August this year, the company announced an investment of Rs94 crore to expand capacity at its manufacturing plant in Khordha, Odisha. The new capacities in Odisha will be operational by October 2022.

In-home consumption of biscuits, cookies, noodles and snacks benefitted as India moved into strict lockdowns to help arrest the spread of the pandemic. Consumers are also likely to shift to more packaged foods and pick brands they trust in the aftermath of the pandemic.

Large companies are therefore accelerating product launches and reach.

Work on the new manufacturing facility in Uttar Pradesh will commence in October and commercial production will begin in 15 months. The proposed facility will source key input materials such as wheat flour, sugar, and other ingredients locally thereby supporting a cross-section of the farming community in the state.