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Crystal Crop Protection Ltd has floated a new entity – Saffire Crop Science for retailing of agro-chemical products. The new venture will leverage technology to offer crop solutions and services and help expand the market reach for the parent company across the country.
Saffire has been operational in Maharashtra for some time now, where Crystal Crop has been test piloting the concept of a separate entity to retail the agro-chem products.
Portfolio of over 50 products
Saffire currently has a portfolio of over 50 products including insecticides, herbicides, fungicides, plant growth regulators and bio-stimulants. It is also setting up its own network of over 2,500 distributors and partnerships to retail the products across the country.
Ankur Aggarwal, Managing Director, Crystal Crop Protection, said the rationale of setting up a separate venture is to build a platform for a deeper penetration in the domestic market.
Aggarwal said the usage of agrochemicals in India is lower when compared to the world average. The Indian agrochemical market is largely fragmented and is estimated at around ₹22,000 crore. The market is expected to grow between 8-10 per cent annually for the next 10 years, Aggarwal said. Having a separate marketing entity will help the Crystal Group, which is also into seeds and farm mechanisation, sustain and expand its market share in the Indian agro chemical segment.
No product overlap
While stating that there won’t be any product overlap between the two companies, Aggarwal said Saffire will have its distribution and partnership model. Saffire will also distribute products manufactured by global players, in addition to those produced by the parent company. About 10 per cent of the products to be sold by Saffire will be from the global companies, Aggarwal said.
Saffire will be leveraging various IT tools and technologies, besides partnering with various agri-tech start-ups for an enhanced market reach. Saffire is eyeing a turnover of ₹500 crore in five years, Aggarwal said.
Crystal Crop, which clocked a revenue of ₹2,050 crore in 2020-21, has major share of its earnings coming from the crop-protection business. Crystal has a total of 76-odd crop protection products including 30 insecticides, 24 herbicides, 13 fungicides and nine bio-stimulants. Last year Crystal had acquired the cotton, mustard, pearl millet and sorghum hybrid seed brands from Bayer CropScience.
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