Blumberg Grain to invest $250m in India over five years

US-based food security company Blumberg Grain might soon invest $250m for a period of five years in India to establish a plant to manufacture components for scientific warehouses.

A group of officials is currently visiting India to explore land options for the new facility and markets for its products, reported the Press Trust of India.

The company is said to be on a lookout for 10ha of land to set up the facility, and is visiting states including Punjab, Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Karnataka.

The new facility is slated to sport a manufacturing division, upstream activities including disseminating best farm practices to farmers, and downstream infrastructure such as processing and packaging facilities.

Blumberg Grain-West Africa CEO David Blumberg was quoted as saying: "We want to be part of Indian agriculture story. There is lot of opportunity because of post-harvest losses."

The company plans to finalise the site during the summer, following which the facility will be made operational within 8 to 10 months.

Apart from searching for land, Blumberg Grain is also in talks with state governments and private investors for the marketing of its storage systems and technology.

Elsewhere, the company recently opened the first aggregation centre of its Shouna Development Project in Egypt. It is currently designing a food security system to help Egypt preserve its locally harvested wheat, which is estimated to help the country save $200m annually in the first phase.

Blumberg is also providing cold chain storage for perishable products to the Nigerian Government.