Kahini Chakraborty – Mumbai
Puratos, a global food ingredient company, is looking at investing heavily in new markets in India. With an aim to further grow the business, the company has opened a state-of-the-art facility in Ranjangaon, Pune. Dhiren Kanwar, country head-India, area general manager-South Asia and customer service associate, Puratos, said, “We have been in the India market for seven years and the country is the fastest growing market in the Asia Pacific region. It makes sense for us to invest in this market. We have invested close to Rs 50 crore and over the next four-five years we are going to invest heavily in setting up new plants in new markets. Presently we have our innovation centres in Mumbai and Delhi, and very soon we will be opening a centre in Bengaluru. In India there are about 80,000 potential customers and we have touch based a couple of thousands up till now.”
The company recently launched its Taste Tomorrow 2015 Research results which focuses on the consumer behaviour in the food space and provides unique insights into emerging consumer trends. The India survey highlighted positive signals for the industry with 62 per cent consumers believing that food will be more diverse in India by 2025. The results also indicated that consumers also believed that food will be more innovative and tastier, convenient and ready-to-eat.
When asked about the growth of the bakery industry, he opined, “We see a lot of growth in healthy products as whole grains, multi grains options are growing five times as more than other products. This is an opportunity for us to cater to customer demand. For patisserie, consumers are looking at more innovative products in terms of healthy food flavours. We are soon going to launch chocolate patisserie as well.”
