June 9, 2011

Bangladesh's Meghna to produce soymeal on local feedmill demand

Meghna Group of Industries, a Bangladesh commodity giant, will start producing soymeal in an attempt to cater to the demands of local feedmills mostly dependent on the import of raw materials to make feed for poultry, fish, and cattle.

Meghna Group of Industries says it is setting up an oilseed crushing mill to extract edible oil and soymeal used by the local feed mills at nearly 100,000 tonnes per month.

More than 80% of the total requirement for the soymeal, the second most used item after corn to make feed, is met through imports from India, feed industry insiders say.

"Our venture will help reduce import dependence of the local feed mills,'' said Mostafa Kamal, chairman and managing director of Meghna Group.

The group has already begun setting up a plant - Meghna Seed Crushing Mills - at Meghnaghat, Sonargaon, 25 kilometres away from Bangladesh's capital Dhaka.

The mill is expected to kick off production by the end of the year with a capacity to crush 2,500 tonnes of soy and other oilseeds daily.

Meghna's plant will be the second seed crushing plant in Bangladesh after the City Group one that is already supplying soybean meal to feed mills.

Kamal said bulk of the soymeal is now imported from Maharastra, India and it takes days to come, leading to a deterioration of quality. ''We will be able to provide better quality meal at competitive prices.''