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Anmol Feeds Pvt. Ltd. forayed into the animal feed industry with a single unit in Muzaffarpur, Bihar, in 2000. It now caters to the animal feed requirements of 19 Indian states and is working with more than 10,000 farmers and 1,000 employees. Amit Saraogi, Managing Director, Anmol Feeds Pvt. Ltd., spoke to BE’s Isha Chakraborty.

Q. How did it all start?

A. My uncle used to stay in a small place called Ramnagar, Bihar, where he had a shop which would sell wholesale materials like fertiliser, oil, flour etc. When I would visit him on vacations, he would put the complete responsibility of manning his shop and business on me. What I learnt there was that there was a huge demand for poultry feed products and that there was a large gap between demand and supply. We spent around Rs 3 to Rs 4 lakh for a cattle feed plant from a Punjab based company. We created feed from it after four to five months of experimentation. That was the starting point. We also took advice of other people who were doing the same job and on January 1, 2000, we started our production in a full-fledged way.

Q. What are the different types of poultry, cattle or aqua feeds that you are dealing with?

A. Our main business is the broiler feed which is the food for chicken. The biggest consumers of this product are the broiler farmers. We also have feed for layers, dairy, floating fish and sinking fish. For diary feed we have different categories based on the milk yield. We have also started a new state of the art floating fish feed plant equipped with the latest technology in Panchla, West Bengal with an investment of around Rs 30 crore. We signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) in 2015 with the West Bengal government and started production in 2017. We are planning to set up a new shrimp feed plant as well.

Q. What differentiates your products?

A. You must understand that most of the raw products that we use are agricultural produce and it is very difficult to standardise it. In these 20 years that we have operated in the market, we have tried to maintain a standard quality of our products. Secondly, we constantly try to foresee future market demands and try to create our products accordingly. We have lowered the feed conversion ratio (FCR) and maintained a good quality control test record as well and have also provided technical support to the farmers.

Q. What are the different quality control measures that are undertaken by you?

A. Firstly, all our plants are fully automated. We have successfully reduced human involvement or handling. This ensures that our products are completely hygienic. 

We also have laboratories in all our factories where we check the quality of the raw materials that we use. We ensure that no quality parameter is left unchecked. We also check the metal content in these raw materials. We also have Near Infrared (NIR), which allows us to get the details of adulteration in raw materials within few seconds. Additionally, we have in-house nutritionists who monitor the nutritional aspects of our products.

Q. Who is your biggest consumer?

A. As of now, our biggest consumers are the poultry and the fish farmers.

Q. What is the difference between traditional feed and your feed products?

A. People who still follow traditional farming do so due to limited awareness and for financial constraints. The input costs in both the cases are very marginal. However commercial feed is yet to attain the traction that it deserves. The farmers need to think of it from a business point of view and only then, they will understand the benefits. Farmers can increase their return substantially if they use our products as against traditional feed.

Q. Do you sell your products direct to the farmers or are there agents?

A. We have at least two to three distributors in each district. The farmers are catered by these distributors who further have sales, management and technical teams working under them. We also conduct farmer meetings where we spread awareness about these products and feeds.