Campco chocolate factory’s production up by 20% in 4 years

The Central Arecanut and Cocoa Marketing and Processing Cooperative Ltd (Campco) is witnessing a steady growth in manufacturing of cocoa based products on rising demand from bulk consumers such as Amul and Nestle.

Production at the multi-state co-operative’s chocolate factory in Puttur, Dakshina Kannada district has seen an increase of around 20.04 per cent in the last four years. Also, the production under Campco’s own brand also increased by 35.96 per cent during the period. The production at the chocolate factory — which was at 13,328.15 tonnes during 2016-17 — increased to 15,956.06 tonnes in 2019-20.

Key growth drivers

On the factors fuelling the growth of chocolate factory, SR Satishchandra, President of Campco, told BusinessLine that the semi-finished goods such as cocoa mass and cocoa butter have got good demand from the industrial users. The cooperative sold 7,853.37 tonnes of semi-finished/industrial products during 2019-20 valued at ₹152.20 crore.

Campco procured around 6,975.95 tonnes of wet and dry cocoa beans during 2019-20. He said that the cooperative is buying cocoa from both the domestic and international market. The share of the cocoa depends based on the international markets, he said.

Of the total production at the factory, Campco’s own brands’ share increased to 11,652.91 tonnes during 2019-20 as against 8,570.82 tonnes in 2016-17.

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New products

As part of its strategy to expand market for products under its own brand, Campco recently launched two new eclair products.

HM Krishna Kumar, Managing Director (in-charge), said the cooperative launched two eclair products – ‘Elaichi Eclair’ and ‘Creamy Eclair’ – on December 8.

Stating that ‘elaichi’ is a generally liked flavour among all the age groups, he said it has got natural cardamom powder ingredients. Another one is an eclair with milk and honey flavour. The cooperative will be producing around 100 tonnes per month of each of these products. It has a target of around 200 tonnes for these two products. At present, Campco has milk and caramel flavoured eclairs, he said. On the price, he said that these two new products will be priced at ₹1 per eclair.

He said the co-operative has been upgrading the capacity of the factory at Puttur. It has ordered a cocoa powder pulverising plant of 400-500 kg/hour capacity from Italy costing around ₹4.55 crore.

The cooperative is planning to introduce some more new products soon, he said.

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This apart, Campco has launched its cocoa-based products on an e-commerce platform. Kumar said that the cocoa-based drinking chocolate brand – ‘Winner’ – has a good demand on the e-commerce platform. ‘Campco Winner’ had almost 60 per cent share in the total cocoa-based products of the Campco available on the e-commerce platform, he said.

Satishchandra said that Campco has an exclusive chocolate kiosks at Puttur. It is also planning to open such exclusive chocolate kiosks at tourist locations, he said.

Exports jump

The value of the chocolate-based products exported has also increased considerably. The cooperative exported chocolate-based products worth ₹22.81 crore during 2019-20 as against ₹16.75 crore in 2018-19. It has exported chocolate-based products worth ₹13.23 crore in 2016-17.

Satishchandra said that the cooperative, which achieved a total turnover of ₹1,848 crore from all the segments, is targeting a turnover of ₹2,000 crore for the current financial year. Campco wants to increase the volume of purchase of arecanut and rubber during the year. He hoped that the target can be achieved as the valuation of these commodities are high now.