CHANDIGARH, July 7: Punjab-based Toubro Industries will diversify into food processing in a big way. On his return from a tour of the US, Holland and Germany, company chairman Kanwar Deep Singh said on Monday that his visit was aimed at finalising the details of the proposed project.

Toubro would set up an `integrated' chicken processing project near Lalru, on the Chandigarh-Ambala National Highway, about 40 kms from here, with a capital outlay of Rs 50 crores. Singh said his company would set up an ultra-modern chicken processing unit. Chicken would be produced under highly hygienic conditions, untouched by hands. The machinery and equipment, along with the technology, would be imported from the US, Holland and Germany, world leaders in poultry technology. After the processing plant, with a capacity of 32,000 kgs per day is set up, the company would float its own breeding farms where birds would be grown under regulated conditions. Toubro would also set up a hatchery or supply of day-old chicks to its farms along with a hi-tech computerised feed mill to complete the integration.

Chicken meat, till now, was produced annually under highly "unhygienic conditions", Singh claimed. This did not involve machines and equipments. Toubro's proposed unit would also export chicken meat. The consumers, Singh said, would get the world standard chicken meat at no extra cost. The company intended to market the product at prevailing prices. "The name of the game was volumes, " Singh explained. Elaborating further on the choice of chicken meat for the proposed project, the chairman informed that world over more and more people were consuming more chicken meat than ever before because people were becoming health conscious. Medically too, chicken and fish meat were considered better than beef, pork and mutton, Singh said, quoting from medical journals. He said chicken contained less fat and cholesterol contents and was also easily digestible. Since chicken belongs to "Avian" and not "mammalian" species, diseases of zoonotic importance were far less in consumption of chicken meat than other meats. Moreover ,chicken meat was not a taboo in any religion or sect unlike as in others like pork and beef. Singh said the recommendation by Nutrition Research Council (NRC) for chicken meat was nine kg per person per year, whereas the present supply was about 70 gms per person annually.

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