Tata Chemicals' nutraceuticals project to be ready by 2019

Tata Chemicals' nutraceuticals project at Nellore in Andhra Pradesh being developed with an investment of Rs 275 crore is expected to be ready by 2019, a top company official said.

The company has already bought the land and started the construction of the plant.

"The nutraceuticals project having investment of Rs 275 crore is progressing well. We have acquired the land in Nellore in Andhra Pradesh, the construction of the plant has begun," R Mukundan, managing director and chief executive officer, Tata Chemicals said at a recent earnings conference call here.

"We expect full commercialisation will be after product qualification, which can take a few months, running us into post summer 2019," he added.

Mukundan said the plant is being constructed for the most stringent pediatric segment but the company may not just sell to pediatric.

"Once we set a plant for pediatric, it can go straight from normal adult food to pediatric food to even animal feed.

Part of these are also used by shrimp farms, which has good demand in the domestic market," he said.

Mukundan pointed out that the bulk of these products are targeted for overseas markets and the company has put distributors across the world to market the products.

Meanwhile, the company's sale of phosphatic fertilizer is also proceeding on schedule, according to him, and as on date and it has received the approvals for transfer of land and other conditions precedent which are part of the deal.

The consumer business is going to be the growth driver for the company going forward, according to Mukundan.

Tata Chemicals' specialty chemicals business today is over Rs 2,000 crore in terms of turnover, while the consumer business is also moving beyond Rs 2,000 crore at this stage.

He said the company is clearly focused on continuing its leadership in industrial chemicals or bulk  chemicals as the company calls it, which is mainly soda ash, growing its consumer and specialty businesses.

Specialty business comprises bicarbonate, agrochemicals, nutraceuticals, rubber and polymer additives.

"We are confident that our consumer foods and specialty businesses over a period of time will meet the target which we had set ourselves to be at least 50 per cent of the revenue of the company," Mukundan said.

On the farm business, he said Rallis continued to do well along with Metahelix, despite tough conditions in the marketplace.