Hatsun Agro shuts ’ready-to-eat’ business under the Oyalo brand

Hatsun Agro Product Ltd. (HAPL) announced it was discontinuing its ready-to-eat (RTE) business with immediate effect, citing losses for the last two years primarily due to the pandemic.

The RTE range, which comprised pizzas and pastas, were manufactured and sold under the Oyalo brand.

The RTE business has been contributing to HAPL’s annual sales of ₹30 crore, which is less than 0.5% of the total sales. “Further RTE business with lesser volume is also not profitable,” the company said in a regulatory filing.

The move, however, would not affect profitability adversely, HAPL said and added that the discontinuance cost was estimated at about ₹17 crore.

The dairy products maker said it would be picking up 26% stake in FP Cygnus Pvt. Ltd. and Huoban Energy 7 Pvt. Ltd. for captive consumption of solar energy for its plants in Karnataka and Maharashtra.

The milk products plant at Dharapuram in Tamil Nadu was expected to commence commercial production by March 2022. This unit would have the capacity to produce one lakh kg of milk products a day, HAPL said.

Besides, the company said it was increasing the monthly installed production capacity of its cattle feed plant in Sangola, Maharashtra, by 3,000 tonnes to 5,500 tonnes. The trial production had started and the commercial production was expected to commence by the end of February, HAPL said.

The company also announced the completion of land purchase in West Godavari District, Andhra Pradesh, for setting up a milk and milk products plant with a capacity of 3 lakh litres per day at a cost of ₹100 crore.

For the third quarter ended December, the company’s net profit slid by 29% to ₹48 crore. Revenue from operations grew by ₹190 crore to ₹1,585 crore. Shares of the company gained 0.18% to close at ₹1,115.60 on the BSE on Friday.