The Hindu Business Line : Cargill to launch olive oil soon

The US-based commodities major will source the oil from its 50:50 joint venture with Hojiblanca, a farmers’ cooperative and market leader in Spain for extra virgin olive oil.

“We plan to launch the oil in the next couple of months. It would be marketed under a co-brand of NatureFresh and Hojiblanca,” said Mr Siraj A. Chaudhry, who has recently taken over as Chairman, Cargill India Pvt Ltd.

Edible oils accounts for roughly half of Cargill’s Rs 5,000-crore turnover from India. Cargill sells around 500,000 tonnes of oil in India under its two main umbrella brands, ‘NatureFresh’ and ‘Gemini’. The former mainly caters to the northern and eastern States, while ‘Gemini’ is more for the western and southern markets.

Cargill currently markets refined soybean, sunflower and ground oil under the ‘NatureFresh Acti-Lite’ and ‘Gemini’ labels. The more affordable refined palm oil, palm olein, vanaspati and katchi ghani mustard oils are sold under the ‘NatureFresh Purita’ and ‘Gemini-Shubh’ brands.

Cargill operates three refineries at Kandla, Kurkumbh (near Pune) and Paradeep, which process imported crude palm oil from Indonesia and soy and sunflower oil from Argentina. About 65 per cent of the oil marketed by the company is imported, with the balance 35 per cent being sourced from the domestic market.

Mr Chaudhry said that the company is also in the process of setting up a sugar refinery at Kakinada jointly with EID Parry. “We expect it to be commissioned by early 2009,” he added.

Cargill India’s other businesses in the country include grains and oilseeds (mainly export of maize and soya meal), cotton, animal nutrition (a shrimp feed unit at Rajahmundry in Andhra Pradesh and a dairy feed plant at Rajpura, Punjab), coal and ferrous materials (export of iron ore, pig iron and steel products and import of scrap and coke).

More Stories on : Outlook | Strategy | Oilseeds & Edible Oil

Article E-Mail :: Comment :: Syndication :: Printer Friendly Page