India’s top shrimp feed producer, Avanti Feeds, has commenced commercial operations at a new feed plant in Andhra Pradesh.
The plant, which opened 3 December, cost around INR 1.25 billion (USD 15.1 million, EUR 14.4 million) and has a capacity of 175,000 metric tons (MT) per year, the company said in a filing with the National Stock Exchange of India.
The additional capacity from the new plant has helped raise the total annual capacity of Avanti Feeds’ feed plants in Bandapuram, Andhra Pradesh, from 600,000 MT to 775,000 MT.
Avanti also engages in shrimp exports through its Avanti Frozen Foods, which is 55 percent owned by Thai Union.
In a quarterly earning call on 18 November, Avanti Feeds Joint Managing Director C. Ramachandra Rao said the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has removed Avanti Frozen’s cooked shrimp from its import alert list on 21 October, following a salmonella outbreak linked to frozen cooked shrimp manufactured by Avanti. The move by the FDA allows Avanti Frozen to ship shrimp to the U.S. again.
The company estimates its exports for the fiscal year ending on 31 March, 2023, at 13,000 MT of shrimp, up from 12,836 MT in the last fiscal year. However, Avanti Feeds said the overall picture of India’s shrimp industry is worsening, mainly due to high inflation in global markets, with the country’s shrimp production likely to drop to between 650,000 and 700,000 MT in this fiscal year, down from 850,000 MT in the last fiscal. India’s 2022 shrimp feed production is now estimated at between 975,000 MT and 1 million MT, down from a previous target of 1.2 million MT for this fiscal year.
To fuel growth, Avanti said it plans to will invest INR 490 million to build a processing plant with a capacity of 7,000 MT per year in the East Godavari District of Andhra Pradesh. The company will also set up a new cold storage facility with a 2,000 MT capacity at its Yerravaram processing plant, and a pre-processing facility in Gopalapuram.
Photo courtesy of Avanti Feeds
