April 29, 2013: Ruchi Soya, one of the leading FMCG majors in India has tied up with Kagome Co. Ltd. based in Japan and Mitsui & Co. Ltd to form a new joint venture ‘Ruchi Kagome’. Kagome is a leading tomato product company and Mitsui is one of the World’s largest trading and investment services companies. With this joint venture Ruchi Soya is to revolutionise the Indian Tomato market. Ruchi Kagome is expected to produce 17 million tonnes of tomatoes per year and have plans to launch premium tomato based products like purees, ketchups etc.
Ruchi Soya inorder to give shape to the new joint venture has already identified land in Maharashtra where it plans to set up its manufacturing plan. The company expects the commercial production to start by June 2014. An initial investment of Rs.44 crore has been earmarked for this project. Speaking about this development Dinesh Shahra, Founder and MD, Ruchi Soya said, “Ruchi Kagome is all set to tap the rapidly growing FMCG and Processed Foods business in the country. We are planning to launch a range of tomato products, based on world class technology to be provided by Kagome. These products will be marketed in both, the Business to Business (Food Services) segment and the Business to Consumer (Retail) segment.”
If this project takes off, the company expects a tomato revolution in the country with the technical know how of Kagome and Mitsui. Ruchi Kagome would be working closely with Indian farmers so that they good yielding tomatoes. They have plans to train and educate the farmers and also to set up local support centers. The partners in the JV have extended their commintment to the integration of the entire value chain for tomato and its processed products in India
