Direct marketing consumer goods major Amway India has decided to increase its proposed investment in its Tamil Nadu facility, with more production lines to manufacture its complete range of nutrition and beauty products.

According to Anshu Budhraja, Chief Operating Officer, the company will invest ₹150 crore over and above the originally proposed ₹400 crore in the manufacturing facility that is coming up at Nilakottai near Madurai.

It is expected to start commercial production by the end of 2014, and scale up to full capacity by October next year.

The company was allotted a 50-acre plot by the State Industries Promotion Corporation of Tamil Nadu, and it initially submitted a proposal to set up nine production lines for nutrition, cosmetic and oral-care products. It now proposes to add three more lines.

With the proposed addition, the plant will produce 34 nutrition and 77 beauty products with an annual installed capacity for over 2 billion tablets and soft-gel capsules; 7 million canisters of drink mixes, 25 million tubes, jars and bottles of personal care products, and 60 million tubes of Glister toothpaste.

The facility, constructed by Shapoorji Pallonji Construction, will be Amway’s first owned facility in the country and second outside the US, the first being in China.

The ₹2,200-crore FMCG player has more than 140 stock keeping units under five product categories — personal care, home care, nutrition and wellness, cosmetics and ‘great value’ products. It currently sources all of them from seven contract manufacturers.

The new facility is meant only to cater to the domestic market and to get better control over manufacturing of healthcare products.

“Amway will continue to source products from the existing contract manufacturers too,” said Budhraja.

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