The Hindu Business Line : Simbhaoli Sugar to enter speciality segment

"All these will be launched in a phased manner; Cubed sugar will be launched in 2 months time. Within the next 8 months, the other sugars (except flavoured sugar) will be launched," Mr A.V. Surender, Head of Sales and Marketing, SSML, told Business Line.

The company recently launched under its brand, `Trust Refined' in Delhi. `Trust Refined' is available in packs of 1 kg and 5 kg.

"We will be targeting all the metros and cities that have a population of more than 1 million, according to the NCAER survey. The company mainly targets institutional buyers from the food and beverages sectors. We also sell in the domestic bulk market. As of now, refined sugar constitutes only 7-8 per cent of our total sales, but we aim to bring it to 20 per cent," he said.

"Apart from domestic market, we are also looking at exports market. We will be exporting to West Asia, the US and Canada. These are markets that demand speciality sugars produced from sugarcane," he said.

`Trust' is already a profitable brand, even though it constitutes only 7-8 per cent of the company's total business.

`Trust' is 99.95 per cent pure because it is bleach-free. It is the most long lasting and moisture resistant sugar available in the market. Since it does not contain potassium, it does not attract moisture. This gives it a shelf life of more than 4 years compared with about 4 months with normal sugars.

The company will break-even this year because both factories at Simbhaoli and Chhilwaria have produced full capacity. A crushing season lasts between 130-180 days and to break even a factory should work a minimum of 120 days.

This year, the factory at Chhilwaria would work about 130 days, and the factory at Simbhaoli will work around 150-160 days, he said

"We have plans to undergo a capacity expansion. The total crushing capacity (TCD) of refined sugar will go up from 7,500 to 10,000 by 2006," he said.

Apart from increasing the total capacity of the plant, the company is also aiming at de-bottlenecking.

This means increasing the TCD of the machinery in the plant that is of lowest capacity without buying new machinery of higher capacity. This comes at one-third to one-fourth price of what would have been otherwise.