Spreading its wings: Gras Group to set up Rs2b poultry processing plant

Investment aimed at providing processed and oven-baked chicken products.

ISLAMABAD: The Gras Group of Industries is setting up an advanced poultry processing plant with an investment of Rs2 billion aimed at providing processed and oven-baked chicken products to consumers.

The group is importing machinery from the Netherlands, manufactured by world-renowned Marel Company, to meet the increasing appetite for white meat in the country.

“With Rs2 billion worth of capital injection, we are planning to gain a significant share of the country’s growing market,” said Gras Group CEO Muhammad Ramzan while talking to The Express Tribune.

He was of the view that this would be the first of its kind factory in the country with state-of-the-art automatic computerised machinery.



“The demand for processed and frozen chicken products is growing primarily because of the changing lifestyle, rising living standards and increasing purchasing power of the middle class,” he said.

The group has purchased 24 acres of land in the largest industrial estate of the country being run by the Faisalabad Industrial Estate Development and Management Company (FIEDMC).

In the industrial estate, local and multinational companies are investing heavily. China Shandong Ruyi Group is also pumping $2 billion into the estate for installing Pakistan’s largest spinning mill over an area of 1,036 acres.

Ramzan sees immense opportunities for doing business in Faisalabad. “The processed chicken market is expanding and consumers prefer processed and oven-baked chicken items which consume less cooking time,” said the CEO of Gras Group, which also owns four flour mills and a poultry feed mill in Faisalabad.

In the first phase, the group will install the plant with a processing capacity of 3,000 birds per hour and in the second phase the capacity will be enhanced to 6,000 birds per hour.

Ramzan said white meat was becoming popular among the consumers as it was easy to cook and reasonably priced.

He said poultry farming was the largest job provider in rural areas, engaging workers directly or indirectly and leading to economic development of the rural population. “The new factory will create hundreds of jobs,” he said.

“Consumption of processed and frozen food is not limited to mega cities only, we will make it available in all parts of the country and also enter international markets like the United Arab Emirates,” he announced.

Published in The Express Tribune, March  25^th,  2015.

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