The Kolkata-headquartered Rs 650 crore Amrit Group, which operates in four verticals -- animal feed production, breeding farms, hatcheries, processed food products and dairy products, is in the process of investing Rs 300 crore over the next couple of years for setting up new facilities, expanding presence across the country and foraying into ready-to-eat, ready-to-cook meat segment.

“We are looking at both organic and inorganic gro-wth to be a leading player in the Rs 9,000 crore poultry feed market in the country. The total animal feed market is even larger — estimated to be as large as Rs 20,000 crore. We are open to third-party manufacturing arrangements as well,” Harish Bagla, managing director, Amrit Gr-oup, told Financial Chr-onicle in Kolkata on Thursday. “At present, we have 12 feed manufacturing units (FMUs) spread across West Bengal, Bihar, Orissa, Jharkand, and Uttar Pradesh, which have an installed capacity of 720,000 mt per annum. Another FMU has just been commercially commissioned in Lucknow to cater to Delhi and a large part of north Indian markets. We have acquired another plant at Jamuna Nagar to cater to the Delhi market exclusively and we in the process of acquiring two other production units in Jammu and Raipur.”

At present, Amrit has a market share of 27 per cent in eastern India.

Over the next two-three years, it hopes to enjoy similar market shares in northern and southern Indian market as well. “In India, a meagre 2.2 per cent of meat is pro-cessed but consumption of processed me-at is growing at a rate of 150 per cent. All our products will be marketed under the Amrit brand name and will be retailed through outlets of Spencer’s, Metro Cash & Carry, Reliance Fresh and other leading retail stores,” Bagla said.