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Mr Ganpatraj Chowdhary, Managing Director, Riddhi Siddhi Gluco Biols Ltd, at a press conference in Chennai on Wednesday. — Bijoy Ghosh

Chennai , Aug. 10

RIDDHI Siddhi Gluco Biols Ltd, which has acquired HLL's functional bio-polymer unit in Pondicherry, says that the unit will be its centre for developing new starch-based products to expand its product and market range.

Also in the pipeline is a greenfield project to produce high value starch-based products and derivatives.

The company now makes starch-based products from corn and tapioca for food processing, pharmaceutical, textile and paper industries. These industries are going through a buoyant phase, which is expected to translate into a healthy demand for Riddhi Siddhi's products.

Outlining Riddhi Siddhi's plans at a press conference today, its Managing Director, Mr Ganpatraj L. Chowdhary, said that following the acquisition the company can now manufacture value-added starch-based products and derivatives for paper and textile industries. Earlier, its strength was in manufacturing starch products for pharmaceuticals and food processors and for low value starch products for the paper industry.

The acquisition of the Pondicherry unit is a forward integration for the company, which hopes to enter into value-added product lines, such as denim grade starch and specialised products for copier paper manufacturers. It is also strengthening its research and development wing at this location to develop more product lines.

Its other manufacturing facilities are in Gokak, Karnataka (which is its largest unit with a capacity of 500 tonnes a day) and in Viramgam, Ahmedabad. It has a total capacity to produce about 1.35 lakh tonnes starch a year.

In addition, by November it will finalise the details for a new project at one more location. While not wanting to share the details for now, Mr Chowdhary said that investments would be sizeable as starch-based units of this type were capital intensive.

Starch and starch-derivatives represent a multi-billion dollar market internationally and the company is also focusing on the export markets, he said.

Its turnover of over Rs 200 crore is set to grow to Rs 250 crore in the current year with exports likely to double to Rs 16 crore. It exports corn starch powder, liquid glucose and corn gluten meal. Its markets are West Asia, Japan, South East Asia, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Nepal.

The company's products include liquid glucose, dextrose monohydrate, maltodextrin, dextrose syrup, high maltose corn syrup and by-products like corn gluten meal and enriched fibre.

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