We at AMIRA, endeavor to build relationships that bond people and cultures across the world through the common language of food, which we call the Food Connect.
With the power of Food Connect and driven by passion for purity, we are committed to creating a global food brand.Our unrelenting focus on quality, innovation and superior taste reflects in our wide range of products, enabling us to build sustained consumer loyalty, making AMIRA, simply the best money can buy.
Plans for growth
- Geographic: targeting nearly 70 countries by 2017
- Expansion in high-growth countries like the UK and the US
- New products: launch of organic products lines and snacks
In the past six years,AMIRA has become a food provider of global importance. The company is now present in 40 different countries under its own name, and across five continents around the world through third-party vendors. Two-thirds of our sales are outside of India. Where once we sold a single product, we now sell a range of them. And we are now allied with food companies and distributors all over the world. We believe that food makes people connect, and creates relationships that bond around the globe.
Basmati rice is still our principal product, accounting for 78 percent of our revenue in 2013.
At our plant in Gurgaon, Haryana, India, we follow a rigorous process of quality assurance from the very start of our purchase of the highest quality raw materials. These are very delicately handled in terms of food safety and hygiene at the state of art manufacturing facility (it is FDA certified since 1996) and process parameters to transform the raw material into the highest quality basmati available to the consumer.
Such is the demand for our rice that we are currently at work on a new, state-of-the-art processing facility that should go into production in 2015. Demand in India alone is expected to rise at about 7 percent CAGR per year until 2025, when it is expected to reach $1.5 trillion.
The appeal of basmati rice around the globe as a healthy food is considerable. Basmati rice is a super grain: It is gluten free, cholesterol-free, and its cultivation requires approximately 50 percent less water than does that of other kinds of rice.
AMIRA’s brand of basmati rice is one of the four major brands in India, according to Marcom ratings. It is distributed both in the country’s traditional distribution networks, and in the newer, ‘Western’ style retail outlets that today account for about 19 percent of the country’s retail network. In India we continue to increase the number of our distribution centers around the country, with four new ones set up in 2013. We are also distributed by Wal-Mart in India.
Outside of India, in emerging markets, AMIRA is working with 3rd party distributors in long-standing and deep-rooted white-label arrangements. These offer a low-risk entry for our product into many markets, and there is still vast potential for expansion in this area. We expect to increase our presence to 70 countries by 2017. And, in the next five years, we are working to increase our branded presence in key target markets like Africa, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, and Jordan – we expect to sell our branded products in 50 countries within five years.
And AMIRA is already successfully penetrating high-growth markets like the US and the UK.
In the U.S., we work with major retailes like CostCo, and we expect to greatly expand our alliances in that market. In the UK, we are already present at Morrisons with five products. Again, there is great potential for expansion here.
AMIRA is also now expanding into new products. We already offer a line of ready-to-eat snacks and institutional packaged products. And we are expanding with a line of organic products that will launch in Europe and the U.S. in the coming year. There has already been a very positive reaction to these products at trade shows both in the US and in Europe by retailers who are eager to expand their healthy product offerings.
In every market, AMIRA has vast room to expand. With a healthy balance sheet (see latest financial information), and burgeoning sales, AMIRA has the very best chance for rapid growth in the coming years.