FieldFresh Foods Manufacturing and R&D Facility

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The FieldFresh Foods new plant is located in Krishnagiri district of Tamil Nadu state. Inauguration ceremony of the facility in November 2010. The facility integrates processed food and beverages manufacturing. FieldFresh Foods inaugurated a new processed food manufacturing and beverages facility in Hosur, Tamil Nadu state, India on 2 November 2010. It is a first-of-its-kind facility in India to have both these processes integrated in a single plant. It also has a research and development (R&D) facility, which will focus on product customisation and innovation. FieldFresh Foods has made an initial investment of INR1.15bn ($23m) in the plant. The company is a 50:50 joint venture between the business conglomerate Bharti Enterprises and Philippines-based Del Monte Pacific (DMP). It was formed at the end of 2007. Construction was started in July 2009 and the plant was officially opened in November 2010. The new plant is located on a greenfield site spread over 21.4 acres in the Krishnagiri district of Tamil Nadu. A fully integrated and automated food processing and beverages unit, the facility is equipped with state-of-the-art technology for pasteurisation, cold storage and packaging. The plant also has automated monitoring systems and an online lab. The R&D facility will support the development of innovative products as per consumer demand. The online lab and the computer monitoring system will help in maintaining a consistent output. The packaging unit at the facility has an option for packing culinary products in glass, squeezy and flexible packs. The manufacturing automation helps in avoiding human error and interference for the majority of the production process. This results in high quality products. The integration enables the Hosur plant to have different capabilities ranging from processing, research and development, packaging and warehousing. It will also support a speed to market strategy. The company used contract manufacturers in North India and imported the packaged foods from Del Monte in Philippines. The Hosur manufacturing facility processes fruit juices and entire functional processed foods. The juice products from the plant include pineapple, orange, mango, and green apple beverages with other ingredients and flavours. The culinary products from the plant include sauces, ketchups, mayonnaise, mustard sauce, packaged foods and Italian cuisine. With the plant being operational, Del Monte plans to add several new products to its portfolio in future. The FieldFresh Foods plant will have a production capacity of 300 cans and 200 PET bottles of fruit drinks per minute during the initial stage of operations. When fully operational, the plant’s capacity will be equal to 10,000 cases in PET bottles and 15,000 cases in cans per day. The plant will also produce about 4t of culinary products every hour. The daily capacities upon full commissioning of the plant will include about 48t per day in glass bottles, 36t of squeezy packs, 8.4t in 10gm sachets and about 12t in 1kg packs. The mayonnaise will be produced at a rate of about 1,500kg every hour. The FieldFresh Foods factory building was designed by B. Mehtalia Consultants. SP Contracts was the general contractor for construction of the facility. The enterprise resource planning (ERP) system for FieldFresh Foods is being provided by Ramco Systems. The ERP provider is also responsible for addressing supply chain management requirements and providing inventory management, sales management, procurement management, financial management and corporate performance management for FieldFresh Foods. The beverage and processed food products will be marketed under the brand name Del Monte. The processed and fresh produce foods market is estimated to be about INR45bn and is growing by about 25% year-on-year. The juice products from the Hosur plant will be marketed in India alone, while the culinary products will be exported too. The Del Monte brand aims to cater to the needs of modern retail restaurants and hotels, and airlines with new consumer products. FieldFresh Foods markets its products through 15,000 general outlets and 1,000 modern trade outlets which will be further expanded.

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