"The need for its facility expansion comes in the wake of the growing food and beverage processing industry in India," Anik Roy, senior manager, business development manager SSP Pvt Ltd, told F&B News.
The recession has left the sector untouched in the markets of Asia-Pacific, Africa and Middle East markets. There is clear indication of the food processing industry boom going by the participation at exhibitions and the visitor profiles accessing such venues.
"India is among the highest producers for rice, grains, milk and related food produce. There is a huge opportunity for value addition. A visible trend is that non-food industry, particularly information technology and electronics, have plans to enter the food processing as a part of a diversification strategy. Non-food majors have seen recognised the scope for growth and are keen to capitalise the same. However, no names can be disclosed at this stage but there is definitely a serious interest and ample market research efforts being carried out on," he added.
These developments have automatically created a demand for machinery for food processing thus resulting in the expansion of our production plants. From a turnover of Rs 120 crore last year, SSP too managed to double the revenues to Rs 240 crore this year, going by the speed of execution of orders at instant coffee plants, tea plants, refined iodised salt processing plants, starch and derivatives, honey processing plant, egg processing plant, malt extract plants, Spirulina Algae powder plant and dairy milk processing centres, among others.
The company which was established in August 1977 has R P Banerjee as its founding chairman and Tapas Chaterjee as its managing director. Its company's core competency lies in evaporation and drying technology. It has collaborated with leading manufacturers to supply cleaning, blending, roasting and grinding equipment on a customised-turnkey basis. For instance, SSP has designed and supplied extractors, powder plant, aroma recovery system, evaporator and spray dryer to manufacturers in India and abroad in the coffee, dairy, fruit and vegetable processing.
"The company's advanced R&D centre, recognised by the Department of Science Technology & Industrial Research is developing novel technologies to address qualitative improvement and enable import substitution. Among these is an evaporator without condenser for awaiting patent is application is pending," said Roy.
"Food processing sector will see a number of Greenfield projects along with upgrades of existing equipment which is opens business prospects for SSP," he said.
"The challenge is that there is a considerable competition among small and unwieldy players who compromise on quality and timely deliveries, which is marring the reputation of the food machinery sector. However SSP's EU stamp has enabled it to garner 600 customers for evaporators and 400 spray driers globally," he noted.
