Emami Agrotech, India’s second largest edible oil company, expects to reach a topline of Rs 25,000 crore by 2025, buoyed by a pan India reach, extension of product range and soaring crude palm oil prices in the international market.
The owner of Best Choice and Healthy & Tasty brands of palm, soya and mustard oils, had a turnover of Rs 12,000 crore in 2020-21, which is expected to reach Rs 20,000 crore this year alone.
Even though the company, founded by promoters of FMCG major Emami Ltd, hopes to sell 25 per cent more than last fiscal, a higher crude palm oil price is likely to be more responsible for the 67 per cent jump in revenue.
During the year, it commissioned a 3,000 tonne per day capacity refinery in Kandla to serve the north Indian market with a lower cost base. “Due to the distance and associated transportation cost, we were not competitive in the northern market, which was being fed from the east,” said Aditya Agarwal, director of Emami Agrotech.
Emami, known to splurge on brand building with celebrities, hopes to spend onwards of Rs 200 crore annually from now on, to make its presence felt in the northern market. “We will truly be a pan India player,” Agarwal added.
The company has 12,000 tonnes per day of installed refining capacity, the largest being at Haldia. It sold about 1.6 million tonnes of oil last year and the plan is to take it up to 2 million tonnes this year. About 60 per cent of the sales is by brands to retail outlets while institutions buy the rest.
On the roadmap for the future, Manish Goenka, director of Emami Agro, said it would hope to transform into a food company with many more branches of business. It launched spices in Bengal a couple of years back, and the products will now be rolled out nationally.
On the soaring prices, Emami could not offer any immediate relief, except that mustard oil prices may soften when the new crop hits in February.
“International market is very volatile. No one can say how the prices will move. As of now, it does not look like prices are coming down," Goenka added.
