Indian shrimp exports has seen phenomenal growth over the past few years making both Indian government as well US government make notice of it.

While the Indian government has offered support to the industry in the recent budget, the government of the largest shrimps consuming nation (USA) is considering imposing anti-dumping duties.

Alluri Indra Kumar, managing director of Avanti Feeds, which has been the backbone of the Indian shrimps industry and the largest value creator of the last ten years says that the likely hike in the duties by the US will not be able to slow down the industry growth.

Avanti FeedsBSE -1.69 % is the largest shrimp feeds producer and is also into exports of processed shrimps. Edited excerpts from the conversation with Alluri Indra Kumar:

What kind of growth are we talking about here?

Taking in to account the available infrastructure and idle land available which is suitable for shrimp culture we are of the opinion that the Industry has the potential to grow 10-15 per cent year-on-year basis which amounts to shrimp production to the level of 8 lakh tonnes by 2021, on a conservative approach.

In the shrimp feed business, you recently set up a new plant of 1.75 lakh tons. What kind of utilization are you expecting there?

Around 90 per cent in 2018-19.

Raw material prices for manufacturing shrimp feeds have risen sharply over the past few months. How will it affect your margins? 

We are closely monitoring the price trends of the raw materials and we hope that over a period of one year they will average out and will not have significant impact on the margins. However, we will review the situation from time to time and take appropriate decision regarding price hike. Being the market leader of shrimp feed in the country, we are more concerned with the success of the farmer. Shrimp feed is a major input cost for the farmer and this has to be carefully balanced.

Given the huge opportunity, several Indian as well as global companies have become aggressive on the feed business. How do you see this impacting Avanti\'s strong performance -- both the growth and the profit margins?

Avanti has been performing and growing in a highly competitive environment since inception. We do not foresee any threat to growth and margins from the competition. Our focus will be on supplying quality feed to the farmers and help them increase their productivity. This has helped us to retain the leadership position.

Source: India Times // Original Article