Punjab's puttar has Maggi, Domino's eating out of his hands
The yellow and green label on the can reads Tabby Sweet Corn. It looks exactly the sort of exotic produce coming with a tag reading ‘Imported from the USA’, found on the shelves of sophisticated superstores in a posh market. But the fine print sa...
By Dinker Vashisht, TNN |
AMRITSAR: The yellow and green label on the can reads Tabby Sweet Corn. It looks exactly the sort of exotic produce coming with a tag reading ‘Imported from the USA’, found on the shelves of sophisticated superstores in a posh market. But the fine print says ‘Made in Meharbanpura’ (a small village near Amritsar).
You can open the can easily, with the flip of a finger, unlike the usual processed food packing where you need nothing short of a crowbar! Inside, there is uniform-sized sweet, glistening, fresh, succulent sweet corn.
Nijjer Agro Foods managing director Satbir Nijjer is the creator of this product. One of Punjab’s most famous farmers and food processors, the 40-something Nijjer is a post-graduate from the Punjab Agricultural University. He later acquired a specialisation from the US in tomato processing.
Today, he is a co-packer of Maggi tomato ketchup (30% of entire production of Maggi ketchup is handled at his unit), the sole supplier of ketchup to Domino’s, supplier of fruit pulp to Hindustan Lever (Kissan Jams) and the preferred milk supplier to Nestle.
He recently got an invitation to assist in farming in Kazakhstan. But as of now, his hands are full. No more bound by the contractual obligations of Nestle, he is all set to take his Tabby brand to markets across the world. Orders are coming thick and fast from Norway and the US. On the cards is an expansion of his facility.
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“The going hasn’t been very smooth. We started in 1991, during the days of terrorism. Then there were some financial issues that were to be sorted out. But now since the past five-six years we have been going good and I envisage bringing 2,000 acre under cultivation in the not too distant future,” he says.A champion of food processing, Mr Nijjer isn’t very impressed with the way India has gone about its agriculture. “Right from Independence, the emphasis has been on growing more. Nobody bothered about quality. This is why, we are laggards in the processed food market in the world.”
In his opinion, small land holdings are the bane of agriculturists in India. “To produce high quality crop you need to have farm mechanisation, funding programmes, tractors... ” The option he says is to go the lease way. This is the model Mr Nijjer has followed.
He takes small plots of farmers on lease, which together constitute a large swathe of land and then the farming is done using the latest methodology. Today, he is responsible for around 300 acres in Amritsar district. If the figures show he is doing well. The combination of farming and food processing fetched him a turnover of over Rs 40 crore annually.
“Come to think of it, I produce 3,500 tonne of sauces, have a capacity of processing 30m tonne of milk every year and am growing a host of other vegetables. Such production couldn’t have been possible in case of small isolated farms. Most importantly, when you take the farms on lease in bulk, it ensures a fair price for the farmer.”
Explaining the advantage of food processing he says. “A crop in itself is not much. Take tomato. If you make a pulp of it, the value goes up several times. You freeze it, the value will rise by another 100% and if you make pulp, freeze it and then dry it, the value of the produce goes up by 200%.”
Mr Nijjer grows three crops in a year — sweet corn (July-September), peas (October-February) and tomatoes (March-June).
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