Krishidhan Seeds Pvt Ltd, one of the top few players in the Rs 8,000-crore strong seeds business in India, has rationalised and consolidated its product line and will stick to the higher end of the market.

Under this new strategy, the company has launched pelletted seeds of tomato and chillies and encrusted seeds of onion in the Indian market. It has plans to introduce these for vegetables such as cabbage and capsicum as well in the near future. It has acquired the technology for the pelleting and encrusting process from a European company.

“For the last year we have stopped dealing in notified seeds. We will operate only in our own hybrid variety of seeds, and have also closed the guerrilla and me-too lines of business,” Mr Sushil Karwa, Managing Director, Krishidhan Seeds, said. He said that the number of trade partners has been pruned down from 2,000 to 800, while the geographic area of sale had also been consolidated.

Following the re-organisation, Krishidhan will restrict itself to selling seeds of Bt cotton, which accounts for 60 per cent of its revenue, and corn, pearl millet, wheat, soya, paddy and pulses. “With sales of 20-22 lakh packets of Bt cotton seeds till July 2011, our share in this segment was 5 per cent,” says Mr Suresh M.R., Executive, adding that this year, the company was targeting sale of 40 lakh packets for a 10 per cent market share.

Another new line of business Krishidhan has recently entered into is the sale of micronutrients and has received an order to supply the product manufactured by the gluconate technology over a period of three years.

“The first consignment of the order, valued at Rs 200 crore, was despatched last week,” Mr Karwa said.

Related Topics
comment COMMENT NOW