The company, headquartered in Kallettumkara near Irinjalakuda, had clocked a profit of Rs 75 lakh in the first quarter of the current financial year.
Kochi: Kerala Feeds Ltd. (KFL) is aiming at a 50 % share in the state’s cattle feed market in the next two years with an annual turnover of Rs 500 crore in the 2020-21 fiscal.
The company, headquartered in Kallettumkara near Irinjalakuda, had clocked a profit of Rs 75 lakh in the first quarter of the current financial year, but the August 2018 floods checked the momentum, said managing director B Sreekumar.
The company did not increase the price of its product despite unexpected financial burden in the aftermath of the monsoon calamity. Though the prices of its raw materials rose by 35 per cent, KFL implemented a mere hike of Rs 25 per bag of cattle feed — that too only after the dairy farmers had begun to resettle after the deluge, he said
The three factories of KFL at Irinjalakuda, Karunagappilly and Kozhikode produce 1,250 tonnes of cattle feed. Once the upcoming 500-tonne plant at Thodupuzha in Idukki district becomes functional, the total KFL production will go up to 1,750 tonnes.
A rise in the prices of raw materials has affected KFL’s performance. Maize, the main input of its products, largely comes from the states of Bihar, Punjab and Andhra Pradesh. The union government’s cattle protection schemes have led to less arrival of the input from these states to Kerala.
KFL’s dependence on other states is working against its benefit, following which the PSU is planning to launch programmes in association with the National Cooperative Dairy Federation, Sreekumar said.
KFL turned a new chapter earlier this month by opening a bypass protein plant at Kallettumkara. Set up with technical aid from the National Dairy Development Board, the plant guarantees better-quality cattle feed and ensures that the product will have the capacity to retain proteins by more than a third in the body of the animal. That leads to increased production and quality of the milk.