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Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs):
Q 1: What about the growth in the existing product profile?
Usher Agro is in basic food products i.e. Wheat and Rice (predominantly non-basmati rice), going forward also we will remain in the basic food only without any product diversification. Our focus will be on enhancement of capacities instead of diversification of product portfolio, since scaling up the milling capacities is very important and critical in long run in case of non-basmati rice space.
We may go for value added food products based on basic food but only once we have certain sizable milling capacity for both rice and wheat till that time we will not divert our energy and resources in any product diversification. Again once we have sizable rice milling capacity in place we can venture in the efficient commercial utilization of by products like rice husk and bran apart from value added food.
Q2: Can you just brief us with what all value added food products you will be adding into your product line?
Well looking forward the future requirement of the country and tapping the opportunities of manufacturing from the paddy. Usher is in process of enhancing the product line with fortified rice, and be the first rice miller to set such manufacturing facilities.
Q 3. There being no entry barrier for setting up rice mill don’t you think there will be more players putting up large mills and hence competition will increase in near future.
I am very certain that going forward rice mill industry sky line is going to witness major change particularly because of the huge opportunity and potential in the sector. In my opinion and I have no doubt that there will be minimum ten to twenty Rice miller each having processing capacity of over one million ton per annum. I am also of firm view that at present there is no competition, in fact it is race how quick and how much capacity one can create before the industry become organized and therefore become competitive. I will again reiterate till industry become organized minimum to the extent of 40% it is free for all to capture the opportunity.
Q 4: This year rice milling capacity of Usher Agro is increased by almost 8 times(from 57000 MTPA TO 543600 MTPA) and again you are planning to increase capacity by another 3,00,000 MTPA. Don’t you think that procurement of raw material i.e. paddy will pose a challenge?
It is pertinent to understand the matrix of Rice milling Industry in India before we dwell upon to address the issue of procurement of paddy. India is second largest producer as well as consumer of rice in the world. India produces approximately 140 MMT of Paddy every year and the same is being milled and converted to rice every year. Therefore availability of the raw material i.e. paddy is not the issue the real challenge is whether the paddy will continue to be milled by unorganized small size uneconomical traditional rice hullers or will it be milled by large size organized millers. We at usher Agro are of the view that balance will be, in fact is, tilting towards large organized Rice Mills vis-à-vis smaller mills due to various economic factors.
Q5: So if you were to sum up your future growth path, what would that be?
We are presently in a growth trajectory with blinkers on and rightly focused to scale up our processing capacity and aim to emerge amongst top three rice miller of the country. We are committed to building and sustaining a high performance organization via people; leverage core strengths for accelerated scalability; acquire quality customers; and building up large capacities with organic growth, to emerge as an admired and preferred company in the basic food business.
Q6: In rice milling plant the by product is rice husk, so what are the plans of Usher Agro to use the best of it?
Rice Husk can be used as a fuel for the generation of power. Usher Agro has already set up a 16MW of Power Plant for generation of power from Rice Husk and the company is already into the process of commissioning the 18MW power plant by next year.