Central Arecanut and Cocoa Marketing and Processing Cooperative Society Ltd. (Campco) is all set to increase the total production capacity of its chocolate factory in Puttur from 18,000 tonnes a year to 21,600 tonnes a year in the next four months.
It will commission a new 3,600-tonne capacity bulk chocolate manufacturing line (machinery) at the factory by March next at an estimated cost of Rs. 21 crore. The state of the art machinery from Italy reached the factory on Tuesday, Managing Director of Campco M. Suresh Bhandary told The Hindu .
Mr. Bhandary said that setting up of the new machinery would enhance the total production capacity of the factory to 21,600 tonnes a year. It would manufacture industrial chocolates in bulk quantity. There was a need for the new line as demand for industrial chocolates was increasing.
He said that Campco and Lotte Confectionery Co. Ltd. recently entered into an agreement for manufacturing éclairs (a variety of chocolates) for the latter. Accordingly, the production had commenced. “We have dispatched the first consignment of éclairs,” Mr. Bhandary said. As per the agreement for two years, Campco would produce 2,000 tons of éclairs per annum for the company.
The factory had been manufacturing industrial chocolates for Lotte since three years (100 tonnes a month). In addition to Lotte, Campco was manufacturing chocolates for Nestle and KMF, and Milma of Kerala. It was processing cocoa beans for Cadbury India Ltd., he said.
Mr. Bhandary said Campco would release a “milk chocolate”, which was yet to be named, either next month-end or the first week of January 2013. “This premium chocolate will be priced at Rs. 20 per bar. It will be a pure chocolate with cocoa butter and cocoa mass and will not have any artificial substitutes,” he said. It would be the 25th cocoa-based product of the cooperative, he said.
