Thailand’s CP Foods to invest $400 mn in India

The Dollar Business Bureau

Thailand's biggest meat producer, Charoen Pokphand (CP) Foods, is aiming to start supplying chicken to McDonald's Corp and KFC in India in the coming few months. CP Foods is planning an investment of around $400 million in India in the next 20 years. Recently, the company started a food-processing unit in the state of Andhra Pradesh. CP Foods is well known in India for its famous Five Star Chicken outlets.

Sanjeev Pant, Senior VP - Food Business, CPF (India) Pvt Ltd, said that the company was in discussion with many fast food chains in India, such as Yum Brands Inc's KFC and McDonald's Corp. He further said that CPF will be associated with these food chains as a supplier, over the next three months. CP Foods has been looking to shift its focus from supplying in the local market to export chicken products to Europe and Japan to help balance weak demand in the domestic market and reduce the effect of a slower economy at home. The investment comes at a time in India when Prime Minister Narendra Modi is pushing to attract foreign direct investment (FDI) through the Make in India initiative by making it easier to do business in the country.

According to a survey by Assocham, domestic packaged food market in India is set to rise to $50 billion by the year 2017 from around $32 billion in December 2015. Pant said that CP Foods would be able to increase its revenue in India by around 20-25 percent in the next few years. As part of its expansion plans, CP Foods has invested $18 million in the food processing plant in Andhra Pradesh, with a production capacity of 20,000 tonnes of chicken and 1,000 tonnes of other products in a year.