By IANS
Kolkata : Sun Fruits Ltd, a Pune-based natural sweetener producing major, is looking at cultivating a sweet herb in northern districts of West Bengal and in the northeast states to tap the growing potential of natural sweetener market in India.
“We will grow stevia rebaudiana bertoni (SRB) 128 variety by bringing about 1,000 acres of land under its cultivation. We are already in talks with tea estate owners who have huge volume of unused land in north Bengal districts and the northeast states,” Sun Fruits director Shivraj Bhosle told IANS here Thursday.
Bhosle said the company is looking for land in these two particular regions because of the climate and high rainfall.
“We welcome corporate partnerships also in this project. Sun Fruits will grow the plants and sell its leaf to others. The company would also develop some retail products out of the cultivation of SRB 128 variety,” he added.
SRB 128 is very suitable for Indian climatic conditions though China is its largest producer in the world. This particular variety has total sweet glucoside content of more than 16 percent as against average of eight percent.
Bhosle said the company plans to set up an extraction unit near the cultivation area. The factory is expected to start functioning from February 2009 somewhere near Siliguri district in West Bengal, “as we don’t want to put up our facility in the Northeast because of ongoing trouble there”.
“The estimated project cost is Rs 200 million with a sweet extraction capacity of 50 tonnes per month,” he said, adding the project will also boost up the local economy in both the regions.
Sun Fruits controls 75 percent of the Indian stevia market. Last year, the total turn over of the company was over Rs.400 million.