The Venture Intelligence Blog

Agri-Biz Investments rise 75% in first 6 months of 2013   Last week, publicly listed packaged rice exporter Kohinoor Foods agreed to sell a 20% stake for almost Rs.113 crores ($18.8 million) to Al Dahra Holdings, an Abu Dhabi-based investment firm which makes investments around the world to secure food supplies to the UAE. Kohinoor has also entered into a joint venture with the investor to develop and manage a rice processing and storage facility in Abu Dhabi. The JV will source a minimum of 25,000 MT of basmati rice per year from Kohinoor. In March 2013, Qatar-based Hassad Food had acquired a 69% stake another rice exporter - Bush Foods Overseas - for $135 million. The deal fetched Bush Food's investor, StanChart Private Equity - the winner of the Best Private Equity Investor of the Year Award at the Venture Intelligence APEX'13 Awards in February - a 2.5 times return on Rs.110 crore ($24.4 million) investment it had made in April 2011, according to the Venture Intelli...

Businessworld profiles a few companies that have made a success of contract farming. Most retail firms — from Reliance Retail through More (the Birlas’ chain) to Food Bazaar — have not been very successful in either building the infrastructure or integrating the supply chains. But a clutch of other firms that has focused on one end — contract farming as a method of sourcing produce — has found ways around the problem of supply-chain management, and let others handle the front end of the retail business. Some export, others sell to established retail chains, while others sell to captive buyers, and a few reach out to the McDonald’s and Subways of the world. ...KS Oils, an edible oils manufacturer in Morena in Madhya Pradesh, sources, processes and sells its own brand of mustard oil in the Indian market. Working with over 2,000 farmers, the group has consolidated 5,000 acres of farm land in the Chambal area of Madhya Pradesh. “This initiative of working with farmers is very recent,” say...