Ruchi Group: October 2013

Friday 25 October 2013

Ruchi Soya to set up oil palm processing plant in orissa

FMCG player, Ruchi Soya Industries Limited is planning to set up a palm oil processing plant in the slate by next year with an Investment of Rs 25-30 crore.

Founder and managing director of the company Dinesh Shahra said Friday that the company has joined hands with the farmers to cultivate oil palm in 28,000 hectare of land in Mayurbhanj, Balasore, Bhadrak and Kendrapara districts.

The construction work will start sometime next year and will he completed within 18 months when it will be operational, he informed.

Under a tripartite agreement with Odisha government and farmers, Ruchi Soya has exclusive rights to procure Fresh Fruit Bunches (FFB) of oil palm from farmers. Upon receipt of the raw material from the farmers, the company will pay to the farmers on every 20th day directly through their bank accounts. There are no middlemen in the transaction, he said.

"The entire process is transparent. Rates of FFB are linked to international prices of palm, thus availing benefits of global markets to local farming community," he said.

Since Odisha occupies an important position in the company's operations, Ruchi Soya has decided to establish a plant in the state to manufacture crude palm oil at an investment of Rs 30 crore, Shahra said, adding, the plant will be operational in one of the four districts under oil palm cultivation in two years.

Ruchi Soya may initially set up 10 tonnes per hour FFB processing mill. Presently, we are associated directly with over 4,000 farmers. At present, over 6,000 persons are directly or indirectly linked with this project which has a larger employment generation potential, he said.

Voicing concern over huge imports of edible oil, he said over 50% of edible oil consumed in India comes through import. Total imports of vegetable oil, including crude and refined, is set to hit a new record of 10.8 to 11 million tonnes this year, Shahra said.

With a potential of 56,000 hectares land suitable for oil palm cultivation, Odisha can play a pivotal role in enhancing palm oil production in the country, he added.

Tuesday 15 October 2013

Ruchi Soya surges on JV with two Japanese firms

Mumbai: Nutrela Soya Food has launched its television commercial. The product is being promoted through a tagline which is in sync with the brands positioning- "Roz Kuch Naya, Roz kuch Soya."

The objective of the TVC is to highlight the versatility of Nutrela Soya Food and therefore to make it as an integral part of a households day-to-day meal.

The campaign will be spread across eight weeks with a TVC breaking first during the ongoing IPL season and then followed with other channels that include Hindi GEC, regional GEC and lifestyle channels.
The company has also scheduled for a product sampling across women's magazine along with recipe ads/booklet to explain the usefulness of soya.

The new 30 second Nutrela Soya Food TVC has been depicted from the backdrop of a leisure trip where a couple enjoying their meal and is later joined by one of their couple friends. The TVC is thereby trying to acknowledge the creativity and versatility of the home-maker, by acknowledging her as food designer.

The TVC has been conceptualised by Soho Square Mumbai and produced by Apocalypso. Meawhile, Madison Media is the media agency on the account.

Soho Square Mumbai ECD and creative heads Satish deSa, Anuraag Khandelwal said, "We set out to get soya out of the blind spot, and into the limelight. To get the world to acknowledge it for what it really is - versatile and creative. We went about doing this by first acknowledging the house-bound wife for what she really is - versatile and creative. 'Food designer' status, we believe, is one of the acknowledgments she truly deserves."

The concept of the TVC is giving credit and gratification for house wives, as she is the only person who doesn't get either monetary or emotional gratification as against the working men or women. Hence, the company decided to acknowledge the creativity of the home maker by providing her a product (Nutrela Soya Food) that can be integrated well with every dish and thus enables her to make "Roz Kuch Naya".

RSIL AVP - marketing - consumer brands division Sandipan Ghosh added, "Home makers or Super Moms constantly aspire to bring in variety in food which is healthy and tasty and cuts across different consumption occasion for their kids, spouse and family in everyday life. We wanted to bring Nutrela Soya to the party as it is an extremely versatile ingredient. Thus, the effort is on increasing consumption by creating awareness on everything that can be done with soya."

Monday 14 October 2013

Just 2/250:Ruchi Soya,ITC fastest homegrowns

Only two home-grown Indian companies — Ruchi Soya & ITC — have made it to the top 250 consumer companies in the world, says a survey by Deloitte titled ‘Global Powers of the Consumer Products Industry 2013’.

While Ruchi Soya has been ranked at 121, ITC stands at 150. For Ruchi Soya that manufactures edible oil and soybean products, it’s an improvement of 54 positions, Last year, the company stood at 175. On the other hand, cigarette and consumer goods maker, ITC has slipped by seven position in this year’s ranking.

If we look at the list of 50 fastest growing company in the world, Ruchi Soya has been ranked at 13, followed by ITC at 39.

While Ruchi Soya has recorded a 66% growth in sales in 2011-12, ITC’s net sales jumped 17.5% in the same period.

This is based on a survey by Deloitte on the data available till June 2012. For a company to make it to the list of top 250 consumer product companies, it has to have a minimum sale of Rs16,600 crore and has to register at least a 7% growth in sales on a yearly basis.

The report points out that as sales in the other established markets are taking a beating, companies from the emerging markets have started taking the lead in the fastest growing company in the world and going forward, this trend is likely to continue.

Dinesh Shahra, managing director of Ruchi Soya, said, “Improved branded sales, better sales realisation of oilseed extraction, effective control on the costs and favourable business sentiment helped us to get better performance in the past one year. We are making our efforts to have good performance on a sustained basis in the times to come.”

An ITC spokesperson said: “ITC’s aspiration to be the No. 1 in the FMCG sector in its new consumer goods businesses is supported by its relentless effort to build world-class brands that create, capture and retain value in India. These brands have earned significant consumer franchise and in addition, we are looking at enhancing the competitiveness of the entire value chain.”

Ruchi Soya Plans Palm Processing Unit In State

Ruchi Soya Industries, India’s largest cooking oil and soya food maker, plans to set up an oil palm processing mill in Odisha at an investment of Rs 30 crore.
“We will initially set up a 10 tonne per hour fresh fruit bunches (FFB) processing mill next year. We are exploring for a location in districts like Mayurbhanj, Balasore and Bhadrak. The plant will take two years for operations”, said Dinesh Shahra, founder and managing director, Ruchi Soya Industries.
The company has started oil palm cultivation on 28,000 hectares land in Mayurbhanj, Balasore, Bhadrak and Kendrapada districts for which the company has entered into a tripartite agreement with the state government and farmers.

Ruchi Soya processes about 0.52 million tonne oil palm per annum.

Apart from Odisha, Ruchi Soya is working with the farmers in the states of Andhra Pradesh, Mizoram, Gujarat, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Chhattisgarh. In Andhra Pradesh, Ruchi Soya has access to over 30,000 hectares of plantation. The company operates four oil processing mills in Andhra Pradesh with aggregate FFB processing capacity of 125 tonne per hour.

“We also have plans to set up an oil refinery in Odisha”, he added.

On hiking the prices of edible oils in the wake of rupee weakening against the dollar, Shahra said, there is no concern for price rise as the international prices of edible oil are coming down and in India, the price is also falling because of the good domestic oil seed crops this year.

The company imported about 1.4 million tonne of both crude and edible oil last year.

Ruchi Soya partners Japan cos for edible oil

To introduce a super premium edible oil brand which Indian consumers have never witnessed, Ruchi Soya Industries, India’s leading food and agro-based FMCG player, has inked a joint venture with J-Oil Mills Inc and Toyota Tsusho Corporation (TTC), both from Japan. Under the terms of agreement, a joint venture company would be formed soon by the probable name of Ruchi J-Oil in which Ruchi Soya would have a majority stake of 51%. While J-Oil, the technology partner in the joint venture, would have 26% stake with the remaining 23% proposed to rest with TTC. “This alliance is an important step towards our business strategy of expanding our product portfolio by bringing value added and healthier products. We will provide raw materials and necessary marketing and distribution assistance to the JV. J-Oil will provide technical assistance and TTC with its rich global experience will provide management assistance for internal control and access to international markets through its network,” said Dinesh Shahra, Founder and Managing Director, Ruchi Soya.

In the joint venture, however, Ruchi Soya would look into manufacturing, branding sales and distribution with the company’s existing expertise in these areas. For this, however, Ruchi would transfer its existing soya processing business in Shujalpur in Madhya Pradesh to the joint venture to fetch Rs 40 crore. The objective of this joint venture unit would be to introduce new edible oil for Indian market which local consumers have experienced in the past, a Ruchi Soya official said. The JV will be managed by a board consisting of representatives from all the three companies. The JV plans to start supplying products to the institutional customers by the end of 2013 and launch high quality consumer products for the Indian markets in the second half of 2014.

Justifying the need of such joint venture, Sumikazu Umeda, President & CEO, J-Oil Mills, said, “The main purpose of this investment is to start our first ever business activity overseas in a promising country like India. J-Oil sees India as a vast and fast growing market and has plans to establish as a leading company in high quality value added edible oil segment.” “Ruchi J-Oil JV provides us appropriate crossover opportunity to leverage our business networks, product portfolios, and skill sets. We create Global Vision 2020 in which we identified three business areas that we expect sustainable growth. We aim to expand food business in life and community field,” said Yoshiki Miura, Managing Director, TTC.

Sunday 6 October 2013

Ruchi Soya joins hands with GAIN and CECOEDECON

Ruchi Soya joins hands with GAIN and CECOEDECON for the Fortification of Mahakosh Soyabean Oil with Vitamin A and D

 CECOEDECON, GAIN and Soyabean oil processors join hands in Madhya Pradesh
 Mahakosh soyabean oil will now have added health benefits to tackle deficiency of Vitamins

June 18, 2013, Bhopal: India’s leading FMCG Company and No. 1 manufacturer & marketer of Edible oil and Soya products, Ruchi Soya Industries Limited (Ruchi Soya) will play a pivotal role in the project on ‘Soybean oil fortification’ in Madhya Pradesh. Under this project, largest selling Soyabean oil brand in the state ‘Mahakosh’ will now have additional health benefits of Vitamin A and D.

This was announced recently in Bhopal during the official launch ceremony of soybean oil fortification project graced by the Honourable Chief minister of Madhya Pradesh Shri. Shivraj Singh Chouhan. Also present on the occasion was Shri Kailash Vijayvargiya, Honourable Minister of Science & Technology & Food Processing, Government of Madhya Pradesh along with several other dignitaries.

Centre for Community Economics and Development Consultants Society (CECOEDECON) has been working on ‘Soybean oil fortification’ in collaboration with the United Nations affiliated body, Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN) and edible oil manufacturers in Madhya Pradesh. Under this project, soyabean oil by leading companies will be fortified with the essential vitamins A & D. This initiative aims to curb malnutrition in Madhya Pradesh with a primarily focus on the nutritional security.

Mr. Sarvesh Shahra, Business Head, FMCG and Specialty Ingredients, Ruchi Soya Industries

Limited commented, “The objective of the soyabean oil fortification project in Madhya Pradesh

is to reduce health related problems arising due to Vitamin A and D deficiencies in the state. We are happy to partner with the NGOs and offering healthier options to the consumers of our soya oil brand Mahakosh in Madhya Pradesh. We will also work closely with NGOs like CECOEDECON and GAIN on the awareness generation campaign on Vitamin A and D deficiency and the strategies to address it.”

Ruchi Soya Industries Limited is India’s leading FMCG Company, the No. 1 manufacturer and marketer of Edible oil and Soya products under popular retail brands like Nutrela, Mahakosh, Sunrich and Ruchi Gold. An Integrated player from farm to fork, Ruchi Soya has secured access to oil palm plantations in India and other important parts of the world. Ruchi Soya is also the highest exporter of soya meal, lecithin and other food ingredients from India. Ruchi Soya is committed to renewable energy and exploring suitable opportunities in the sector.

The Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN) is an alliance driven by the vision of a world without malnutrition. Created in 2002 at a Special Session of the UN General Assembly on Children, GAIN supports public-private partnerships to increase access to the missing nutrients in diets necessary for people, communities and economies to be stronger and healthier. GAIN is a Swiss foundation headquartered in Geneva, and has a global presence.

The Centre for Community Economics and Development Consultants Society (CECOEDECON) was founded by a small group of young, committed social workers to provide immediate relief to the victims of devastating floods in Jaipur district in 1982. From a very modest beginning as a relief agency, ECOEDECON has evolved into a civil society organization pursuing integrated participatory development and advocating human rights.