Aditya Birla Nuvo to set up mega food park in India

Aditya Birla Nuvo, a unit of Indian conglomerate Aditya Birla, is set to establish a mega food park in Jagdishpur, in the state of Uttar Pradesh, through its Indo Gulf Fertilisers arm, with an investment of INR1.5bn ($24.46m).

Spread over 72 acres, the Shaktiman Mega Food Park will feature 35 food processing units and impact around 40,000 farmers in the state.

The facility is expected to feature world-class food processing infrastructure, including transportation, logistics, centralised processing centres, effective supply chain, processing, packaging and environment protection systems, quality control laboratories and trade facilitation centres.

The park will offer services such as dry warehousing, cold storage, a farmer-friendly bank as well as education and business centres.

The company will establish the central processing centre (CPC) at Jagdishpur with primary processing centres at Sultanpur city, Faizabad, Rae Bareli, Barabanki, Lucknow, Pratapgarh, Ambedkar Nagar and Jaunpur.

An Aditya Birla official was quoted by The Financial Express as saying that the food park is estimated to generate revenues of Rs4.5bn and create 2,500 jobs, and will implement the best practices in post-harvest management.

An official of the state’s agriculture department, who asked not to be identified, was quoted by the publication as saying, "The mega food park is expected to leverage UP’s position as a leading supplier of raw materials – wheat, sugar, potato, milk and livestock – in agriculture."

"The state has a huge potential of food processing and exports due to high production in both food grains and horticulture, including potato, sugarcane, wheat, rice and vegetables," the official said.

"In this light, the current project is expected to tap into UP’s potential by developing the value chain from the farm to the market."