MTR Foods to invest Rs 200 cr to scale up manufacturing

MTR Foods is planning to invest about Rs 200 crore in the next three to five years to scale up its manufacturing infrastructure.
According to a report in PTI: The company has also announced the opening of its new e-commerce platform, which will give consumers access to its entire range of products.
“Another big thing that we are doing is around operations and manufacturing, which is really in preparation for the future. If we have to grow… we will need additional capacity, we will need additional investment,” CEO, MTR Foods, Sanjay Sharma said.
“We have put together a plan internally, based on our growth plans, to invest close to about Rs 200 crore in the next three to five years. This will be on increasing our capacity from close to about 45,000 tonnes to about 72,000 tonnes with state-of-the- art equipment and high quality infrastructure,” he added.
In 2007, Norwegian conglomerate Orkla took over MTR Foods, which has been serving authentic Indian food for about 90 years.
Stating that MTR’s capacity was about 18-20,000 tonnes when Orkla took over, Sharma said, “Since then we have doubled it. We have invested close to about Rs 220 crore just in capital investment and improving the standards of the factory, and took the capacity to about 45,000 tonnes.”
The company has a facility at Bommasandra in the city. MTR today has a size of about Rs 700 crore with a compounded annual growth rate of 18 per cent. It has over 140 products.
“We have very high expectations out of MTR, we expect touching close to Rs 2,000 crore as we go ahead into 2020,” he said.
Pointing out that MTR has retained number one position in all categories it serves, the company officials said exports form about 10 per cent of the business.
Brand History
MTR was founded as a restaurant by Yagnanarayana Maiya and his brothers in the year 1924. In the mid 1970s when India was under emergency, a Food Control Act was introduced which mandated that food was to be sold at very low prices. This move made it difficult for MTR to maintain high standards in its restaurant business and forced it to diversify into the instant food business, selling ready-to-eat snacks such as chutneys and rasams.
MTR Foods Pvt Ltd was formerly known as Brahmanara Coffee Club and changed its name to MTR Foods Pvt. Ltd. in 1951.
Since the 1970s, MTR has expanded and diversified, with MTR Department Stores opened next to the restaurant, and an outlet opened in Chennai. Currently the MTR brand represents two separate entities; the MTR restaurant business and MTR Foods, the pre-packaged food business.
In 2002, MTR Foods began opening franchised fast-food restaurants across India that served its vegetarian specialties. These are called MTR Super Shops. As of April 3, 2007, MTR Foods Pvt. Ltd. operates as a subsidiary of Orkla ASA.
At present, MTR Foods produces, markets, and exports a range of packaged food products and recipes to global markets, including the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, the Middle East, Japan, and South East Asian countries. Its products include ready-to-eat curries and rice, ready-to-eat cook gravies, soups, dessert mixes, snack mixes, snacks, masala powders, sweet mixes, breakfast mixes, ready to eat, beverages, vermicelli, spices, meal mixes, masala pastes, sweets, pickles, papads, frozen food, ice-cream, instant mixes, and milk beverage drinks.