Suguna Poultry hatches two more designer eggs

Chennai: Coimbatore-based poultry operator Suguna Poultry Farm Limited has introduced two more variants to its basket of designer and diet eggs, taking the total to four egg brands.

Entering the fledgling fortified eggs market this year, the Rs1500-crore company has now hatched Suguna Active and Suguna Heart. Its two earlier brands are Suguna Pro and Suguna Sakthi.

"Suguna Active contains high levels of docosahexaenoic (DHA), Vitamin E and organic selenium a must for children, pregnant women, lactating mother and all adults," said Dr. K Ravindran, general manager, sales and marketing.

Suguna Heart, its other new product, is an egg enriched with Omega 3 fatty acids and Vitamin E and helps in reducing serum triglycerides and low density lipoprotein cholesterol in the blood.

"The egg yolk has 24 per cent less cholesterol than the normal table eggs."

Half-dozen packs of Suguna Active and Suguna Heart are priced at Rs23.50 and Rs26.40 respectively and are distributed to retail chains and other big provision stores in Tamil Nadu, Bangalore, Hyderabad and Pune.

The company now plans to introduce its branded eggs to Mumbai.

According to Ravindran, branded eggs cost more because the special feed for the layer birds, cost 35 per cent more than the normal chicken feed. Designer eggs are the outcome of feeding the hens with customised food to get eggs with desired properties.

"Since this is a branded product we grade the eggs to ensure that the packed eggs are of uniform size and weight (55-60 gram). The yield rate is just 60 per cent and remaining 40 per cent is sold as normal table eggs.

According to Ravindran, the company sources the eggs from dedicated farms in Tamil Nadu. "When we expand to other states, we will take local farms on lease so that the freight cost is reduced."

According to him, the designer eggs business needs deep pockets to and cited examples of those who entered and then exited the business.

The other variety of egg that are available in big retail chains are double yolk egg.

"These are nothing but normal eggs with two yolks that hens lay, and can be identified by their larger size. We don't sell these," Ravindran explains.

Meanwhile Suguna Poultry, funded by the International Finance Corporation (IFC), is expanding its operations by putting up a huge layer farm in Namakkal in Tamil Nadu and a feed mill in Bangalore.
  
The proposed feed mill involving an investment of Rs300 million will be Asia's largest with a per hour capacity of 60 tonnes.