New Delhi - With the commissioning of first ever Canola Oil Plant in India by Jivo Wellness, the Rs 10,000 Crore packaged branded Edible Oil market is all set to heat up.
Jivo Wellness – a wellness venture of Akal Information Systems Limited (an ISO 9001:2000 certified company) complying to 6-Sigma best practices and ITIL customer management today inaugurated its new state of the art Canola Oil bottling plant in Delhi. The new plant was inaugurated by Mr. Gerry Ritz, Minister of Agriculture & Agri-Food, Minister for the Canadian Wheat Board, Govt of Canada along with Mr Robert Hunter, Vice-President (Communications), Canola Council of Canada.
On the occasion Mr. Ritz also launched Jivo Canola Oil in the consumer pack of 1Ltr, 2 Ltrs & 5 Ltrs.
Mr Ritz, who was specially here for the inauguration of the first ever canola oil plant in India, said "My heartiest congratulations to Jivo Wellness on the opening of this facility to bring Canola Oil closer to the Indian population who I believe would benefit enormously from the health benefits of Canola. With rising health care costs, each one of us is concerned about our well-being by shifting to healthier foods like Canola"
Also present of the occasion Mr Robert Hunter, Vice-President (Communications), Canola Council of Canada, said "The Canola Council of Canada is very happy to see exports of canola oil increasing to India. With the new Jivo Wellness brand, we see growing opportunities for canola oil in this market. Congratulations to Jivo Wellness on setting up this new facility"
Sharing the mission behind Jivo Wellness, Mr RPS Kohli, Director, said, "The mission of Jivo Wellness is simply creating a "Healthy India!" and it intends to bring on table an array of revolutionary wellness products that are simple, easy to afford yet full of value. To begin with we have introduced Jivo Canola Oil – a new cooking medium for Indian household which is priced almost at par with edible oils available in the market. However the wellness qualities of this edible oil are far better than other medium available in the market"
Jivo Wellness intends to project Canola Oil as the healthiest oil and make it a Rs 5000 million brand over the next five years. With the belief that this oil would be the 'kitchen king' once it enters the Indian market with other edible oils, it endeavors to break the negative label of thinking tagged with oils; that every oil has saturated fats and have cholesterol. And this pessimism has been conked out by introducing Jivo Canola Oil in India which retains and brings forth the good ingredients in edible oils while promoting the need for healthy and balanced diet. The Jivo brand is claimed to be in rich in omega-3 : omega-6 ratio which makes it the best oil from others. These constituents promote good health, lower the risk to heart prone diseases along with reducing the risk to diseases like blood pressure & diabetes. Besides, this makes it the best one is that it has the highest unsaturated good fats which are considered good for health. Jivo Canola Oil is available in diverse packages like 5-litre, 2 liter, and 1 liter bottles and soon would be available in small pouches which have been specifically targeted to the rural group.
Commenting on the market potential for Canola oil in India, Mr Kohli said, "At present per capita consumption of edible oil in India is 11.5 kg/year is way below the world average of 18 kg. Even china is at 17 kg. According to industry estimates, a 4% increase in per capita consumption and a population growth of 1.9% will foresee 21.3 million tons of demand for edible oil by 2015, creating a significant market for brands like us"
Jivo Wellness plan to invest Rs 200 million the first year of operation, and intends an additional investment of Rs 600 million in near future to increase the capacity. The projected turnover would be Rs 1000 million by 2012 and looking at the growth charts, it intends to achieve Rs 5000 million by 2015.
The newly set up in-house Filling and Capping Plant to bottle the product in India, helps Jivo to outprice imported brands of Canola Oil in India and to sell at a half of their price. The installed capacity of this plans is to produce 12 million litres of Canola Oil per annum.
As a pilot project, Jivo already has a head start on the Canola plantations in Northern India. A group of senior researchers and scientists spent more than six years to plant breed the Canola seed in India. The results have been encouraging and It managed to crop around 20% of the requirements at this stage. In future Jivo would be keen to manufacture in India, besides, starting contract farming in a big way soon to reduce imports.
Even the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), has confirmed Canola oil is now eligible to bear a qualified health claim on its ability to reduce the risk of coronary heart disease(CHD) due to its unsaturated fat content. The claim suggests that eating about 1 1/2 tablespoons (19 grams) of canola oil daily may reduce the risk of coronary heart disease due to the unsaturated fat content in canola oil. To achieve this possible benefit, canola oil is to replace a similar amount of saturated fat.
Further Mr. Kohli elaborated that, "Canola oil is quite popular overseas just because of its nutritious contents and now its time to acquire momentum in Indian hearts as well. It has been seen that we Indians are more prone to enter the dreaded heart attack zone just at the age of 35 while rest of the world enters at 55. According to estimates 60 to 80% deaths in the world occur due to ailments like heart attacks – much more than any other disease. And here eating habits plays a major role in such issues specially the cooking oils which are the main culprits in clogging arteries."
"Although the Trans Fats have now been banned in many developed countries, especially in US and Canada, where the Govt laws are on place to keep snacks and fast food, Trans Fats free, India is still at very nascent stage as far as these regulations are concerned." he added.
