Central Poultry Development Organization & Training Institute under Government of India, Ministry of Fisheries, Animal Husbandry & Dairying, a premier Institute located at Hessarghatta, Bengaluru organized a First Online Round Table of startups in poultry sector.
Poultry sector in India is a techno-commercial sector with contribution of nearly 1.5 lakh crores to the GNP with about 6 million people being employed directly or indirectly. Poultry Farming Practices in India are one of the best in the world. The Science adopted in Genetics, Nutrition, Management and Disease prevention are one among the best in class matching Global Standards. Presently it is estimated that 5 billion broiler population, 250 - 300 million layers and about 4.5 to 5.0 crore broiler breeders are being reared in India. This has established Indian Poultry Sector as one of the best farming activity at a global scale with highly efficient production systems in place. However, poultry products namely egg and meat are being traded as commodities in the traditional market system. The new age companies are entering into poultry sector by adopting technology expertise of brand building and consumer focus approach in re-defining marketing of poultry products.
The founders of different startups who were invited for the online round table were, Mr. Abhay Hanjura – Licious (Unicorn of 2021), Mr. Shan Kadavil – Fresh to Home, Mr. Narendra Pasuparthy - Nandus, Mr. Vignesh Soundararajan/Mr. Krishna Prasad – Delfresh (Suguna Foods), Mr. Nishanth Chandran - Tendercuts, Dr. Sanjoy Kumar Das & Mr. Sushil Kanujolu - Fipola, Mr. Abhishek Negi - Eggoz, Mr. Mahesha – my Chicken & More, Mr. Harsha – The Meat Factory.
The Online Round table confrence started with the opening remarks by Dr. Mahesh P.S., Joint Commissioner & Director, CPDO &TI.
Mr. Narendra Pasuparthy, producer cum startup from Nandus while speaking said that “We being producers end up in a local broken supply chain not getting my price for my product. He said that he got inspired by chairperson of VH Group Dr. Anuradha Desai’s words to start retailing and to build a brand is essential for getting the price for the product
Mr. Vignesh Soundararajan, Son of Mr. Soundararajan, Chairman and Managing Director, Suguna Foods has established a parent endorsed brand “Delfresh” in this category during last quarter of 2021. Representing delfresh, Sri. Krishna Prasad, Vice President Suguna Foods mentioned that Suguna being expert producer and processor wanted to expand as a consumer facing brand in the new ecosystem. Even though Suguna is having a revenue of more than 10,000 crores per year but Past two years have been a great challenge for poultry producers with escalating costs of inputs of Corn and Soya. They have undertaken a new journey of branding 280+ stores of Suguna with Delfresh with new signage and brand identity and focusing “only offline model as of now”.
Speaking on the processing sector he said that presently the overall capacity of processing in India is 1.4 lakh birds per hour with maximum utilization of only 70%, rest being idle because of processing alone being not lucrative.
Other participants also shared their experience and acknowledged the contribution of private entrepreneurs in the poultry development in India
