The Hindu Business Line : Campco bags US order for 100 tonnes cocoa butter

Mangalore April 3 The Central Arecanut and Cocoa Marketing and Processing Cooperative (Campco) Ltd has secured export order of 100 tonnes of cocoa butter to the US.

Mr S.R. Rangamurthy, President, Campco, told Business Line here that the shipment of this consignment would begin in the next few days. However, he did not provide more details.

The first batch of 20 tonnes is likely to be shipped in the next 10 days. The cooperative hopes to complete the shipment of the remaining 80 tonnes by the end of May.

Cocoa butter is one of the products being manufactured at the chocolate factory of a cooperative at Puttur in Dakshina Kannada district.

He said the drinking chocolate product - `Winner' - of the cooperative has good demand in African countries. The cooperative has exported a considerable amount of `Winner' in the past nine months. However, the product is marketed under a different brand name there.

The chocolate products of Campco have witnessed a growth of 30 per cent in the domestic market during the current fiscal against the previous year, Mr Rangamurthy said.

FACILITY UPGRADE

In its efforts to provide quality service to compete in the international market, the cooperative has taken up work on upgrading infrastructure at the chocolate factory. He said Rs 2 crore would be invested in a phased manner on upgrading the infrastructure at the factory.

As a part of this project, Rs 25 lakh has already been invested on upgrading the quality control laboratory in the premises, which is ready for use.

"The original laboratory, which was set up in 1986 during the inception of the factory, was found inadequate in meeting the diversified requirements of sophisticated customers. The new laboratory can accept any sort of challenges for food testing."

Rs 1-crore warehouse

A new warehouse is coming up in the premises of the factory at a cost of around Rs 1 crore for storing finished chocolate products.

In addition, some more new equipment will be installed at the factory.

The cooperative has purchased a land adjacent to its factory for taking up the work infrastructure improvement, Mr Rangamurthy added.

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