Anil Group to construct food park in India

Indian diversified business house Anil Group is set to start construction of a $39.18m mega food park in Gujarat next month, which has the potential to home 30-40 food processing industries.

The food park will be built over 100ac and will feature units with modern infrastructure and technology as well as common infrastructure required for processing, packaging, and environmental protection systems.

The food park will also feature a central processing centre, primary processing centre, centre of excellence for R&D, quality control and application labs, cold storage and a vocational training centre. In addition, the food park will combine various aspects of food processing and agri-business supply chain to create an efficient supply chain, reduce wastage, build capacity for food processors and increase realisation for farmers.

Last May, under the Mega Food Park Scheme, Anil Group was selected by the Union Ministry of Food Processing Industries to set up the mega food park in the state, following which a special purpose company Anil Mega Food Park was created. The group’s flagship company Anil will hold a majority stake in the park, while the rest will be held by a consortium of companies from food processing, logistics and infrastructure businesses.

The food park is likely to attract investments of around Rs10bn ($195.94m) and feature major players from the food ingredients, processed food and food packaging industries. It will also enable Anil Group to strengthen its presence in various related segments such as corn wet milling, food processing, milk and dairy products towards becoming an integrated player in the ‘farm to fork’ supply chain in the food and agro-processing sector.

The Mega Food Parks Scheme envisages that each food park will feature 30-40 food processing industries, benefitting 6,000 farmers directly and 25-30,000 farmers indirectly.