Food processing firm BL Agro Industries has set a target of ₹4,500 crore turnover this fiscal — an increase of 27 per cent from nearly ₹3,540 crore last year, said Ashish Khandelwal, Managing Director of the company. The business grew 56 per cent in FY22.
“We want a slow and steady growth. Though the target is ₹5,000 crore, we are confident of achieving ₹4,500 crore. Our core business is edible oil, which contributed over 80 per cent in the turnover last year,” said Khandelwal, who is the third generation in the family-owned business that was running under a proprietory firm until 1999. Besides, within the cooking oil business, the mustard oil is highly promising with close to half of the share, he added.
Expansion activities
Though dealing mostly in bulk, the company has been rapidly growing in the retail market under the ‘Bail Kolhu’ brand of cooking oils. It has also launched different food products such as atta and other wheat products, pulses, besan, papad, pickles, honey and murabba under ‘Nourish’ brand in 2019 with in-house production.
Khandelwal said the company has already covered entire northern region in edible oils and recently expanding to southern States with presence in Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh. It owns two refineries with a total capacity of 1,400 tonnes, but outsource the products and sell them under its own brands ensuring quality.
“All our units are located in Bareilly, Uttar Pradesh at one place with modern packaging facilities,” he said.
Asked how the company is managing after the fuel increase that led to higher transport costs, he said the impact is same for all companies and consumers are ready to pay higher for better quality products. The price increase in edible oils has been passed on to consumers as companies have little choice.
Khandelwal said that though BL Agro does not import directly from Indonesia, but after the ban on export, it has now asked its sellers to source it from Malaysia. Even for sunflower oil, the company has been getting limited supply from Argentina after the Russia-Ukraine war impacted supply from the Black Sea region.