Gujarat CM to open Rs. 450 crore plant of Abbott Nutrition at Jhagadia

Bharuch, 15 October 2014

Gujarat Chief Minister will tomorrow morning inaugurate the first nutrition plant at Jhagadia in central Gujarat.

Abbott Nutrition, the world’s largest maker of adult nutrition products and part of US-healthcare group Abbott Laboratories, will open its largest import substitution plant in India on Thursday.

Gujarat Chief Minister is going to inaugurate this plant in which the company has invested about Rs.450 crore. The plant is located at Jhagadia in central Gujarat.

The factory is Abbott’s third manufacturing plant in India. The other two are in Baddi (Himachal Pradesh) and Goa, and it employs some 400 people.

The Jhagadia unit will manufacture most of the company’s global nutritional brands including Similac, PediaSure, Ensure, Mama’s Best, Glucerna among others, which are currently imported.

Abbott also plans to co-develop and source as much as 80% of the ingredients from local suppliers for its nutrition products sold in India. Mint had reported in April that Abbott plans to locally manufacture most of the brands it sells in India once its globally compliant production facility in Gujarat goes on stream.
“We are expanding our presence in India by contributing to the local economy, providing more than 400 employment opportunities and investing in our local talent with extensive training and skill development,” said Amal Kelshikar, country head and general manager, Abbott Nutrition, India.

Spread over an area of more than 39 acres, the Jhagadia plant uses a completely sealed production procedure that ensures products are untouched by human hands until the final packaging stage and are not exposed to outside elements during manufacturing. In 2012, Abbott had opened a nutrition research and development centre in Bangalore to accelerate the development and delivery of local science-based nutrition products for India.

Abbott, which had to drop its plan to acquire the nutrition business of local drug maker Wockhardt Ltd for about Rs.650 crore in 2010 because of legal hurdles, is moving ahead with an alternative strategy to build a strong local business organically. “We have put almost the same investment in building the market and to establish a strong back-end operation including manufacturing in the country,” Kelshikar had said in an earlier interview.

Abbott plans to co-develop and source up to 80 per cent of ingredients from local suppliers for its nutrition products sold in India, the company added. Abbott is also developing a program to provide infrastructure and training to dairy farmers in rural areas of India. The goal of the program is to provide 1,500 small-holder dairy farmers with the support and infrastructure they need to help them increase their incomes, while expanding the supply of high-quality milk needed for our new plant. Through this program, Abbott plans to provide targeted technical and business training in an effort to help farmers grow their business and strengthen the local dairy industry, while also strengthening Abbott’s supply chain, the company said.

In India, Abbott has over 14,000 employees working in manufacturing, research and development, logistics, sales and marketing.