The Poultry Magnate The Coimbatorebased company now has four business verticals- farm (Suguna Chicken), feed (Suguna Feeds), processed food (Delfrez), and soya (Mother's Delight). Suguna operates pan-India with 42,000 farmers across 15,000 villages in 18 states and has 250+ retail stores.

INR 5000, that's the investment B. Soundararajan and G.B. Sundararajan had when they set up a poultry farm in Udumalaipettai back in 1984. Cut to 35 years later, the small farm has taken the shape of one of the leading broiler producers in India, Suguna Foods, with a turnover of INR 11,000+ crore.

At its nascency, the duo bought chicken feed and sold them to farmers, reducing 14 cost centres to four. However, they faced their share of resistance. "The multiple cost centres, value chains, and multiple margins had consequently had costs escalated, and farmers' profit margins dropped down. When the contract farming model was introduced, farmers were resistant to the idea, but once they saw good results in the trial batches, the word spread," shares B Soundararajan, chairman, Suguna Group.

The Coimbatore-based company now has four business verticals- farm (Suguna Chicken), feed (Suguna Feeds), processed food (Delfrez), and soya (Mother's Delight). Suguna operates pan-India with 42,000 farmers across 15,000 villages in 18 states and has 250+ retail stores. It has also set up poultry subsidiaries in Bangladesh and Kenya. "We have a dedicated farmer App to assist in growing chickens and trades have a mobile app to order goods easily," he adds.

The model, at its early stage, saw support from the then CM of Andhra Pradesh, Chandrababu Naidu, which encouraged them to foray into the state and later into other markets such as Karnataka, Maharashtra, etc. Suguna boasts of a 15 per cent market share in the poultry division in the country.

Factsheet:

>> Year of inception of the company- 1984

>> Turnover for FY 21-22: INR 11,000+ appx Cr

>> No. of employees- 8000+

>> Head office location- Coimbatore