Camlin Fine Sciences Ltd. (CFS) has a 90 year old legacy, starting from manufacturing ink powders and tablets in 1931, to expanding into stationery products, to diversifying into research, development, manufacturing and marketing of specialty chemicals, ingredients and additive blends.
Profile Camlin Fine Sciences ltd
CFS’s specialty chemicals caters to four different businesses – Shelf Life Solutions, Performance Chemicals, Aroma Ingredients and Health & Wellness.
The financial year 2021 was marked by few major milestones for CFS. In the early part of the financial year, marquee investors, Infinity Holdings and Infinity Direct Holdings agreed to invest INR 170 crore in the company for growth capital of future expansions and enhancement of the company’s operations.
The company embarked upon its largest greenfield expansion in 2018 in Dahej, Gujarat for a green-technology-based DiPhenol plant for a 10,000 MT Di-Phenol facility. And in September 2020, the Company announced the commercial production of Hydroquinone and Catechol. The Dahej facility includes world-class infrastructure and a state-of-the-art highly automated plant that employs a lean workforce of around 70 people.
Profile Camlin Fine Sciences Products
Over the last decade the company has grown organically and inorganically to establish itself into becoming one of the few fully integrated global manufacturers of speciality chemicals and their blends, that are widely used in everyday life across Foods, Animal Nutrition and Pet Food, Flavours & Fragrances, Pharmaceuticals, Agro Chemicals,
Petro chemicals, Dyes and Pigments, Polymers and Bio Diesel, to name a few.
It offers over 100 blend formulations and manufactures a variety of downstream products of Hydroquinone and Catechol. CFS’ manufacturing operations are spread across in India, Mexico, Brazil, Europe, and China from where it serves over 1,000 customers spread across more than 80 countries.
Shelf Life Solutions
The Shelf Life Solutions business markets antioxidants, other additives and blends for human food, petfood, animal feed (including aquaculture) and biodiesel, giving it the necessary protection.
With the growing trend to adopt natural solutions, CFS has developed and marketed natural shelf life solution products (under the “NaSure” brand) in all its operating markets for premium offerings of packaged food and petfood.
The Shelf Life Solutions business for India and rest of the Asian markets were quite stable during the year. The Company has successfully increased its distribution network. It has plans to widen the product basket to the application industries using it’s antioxidants.
Performance Chemicals
CFS started its Performance Chemicals division in 2011 with the production of di-phenols (hydroquinone and catechol) through a 100% owned subsidiary, CFS Europe SpA.
It has since been dedicated to the development and production of various downstream products like TBC, Veratrole, MEHQ, Guaiacol, HQEE, etc. These downstream products are manufactured in it’s state-of-the-art facility in Tarapur, India.
With the commencement of Company’s Dahej plant in India, the capacities are further enhanced for Hydroquinone, Catechol and possibilities with downstream products.
Aroma Ingredients
Flavors and fragrances have a wide application in the food, feed, cosmetic, chemical, and pharmaceutical sector. Nowadays, they represent over a quarter of the world market for food additives and most of them are provided by extraction from natural sources or by traditional methods, as chemical synthesis.
Nevertheless, extraction from plants has limitations such as low concentration of the product of interest, seasonal variation, risk of plant diseases, stability of the compound, and trade restrictions.
In fact, chemical synthesis still represents cost-effective technologies for their production and applications within reach. CFS is the third largest global manufacturer of synthetic Vanillin, an aroma ingredient.
Health & Wellness business
The launch of Health & Wellness business vertical has demonstrated the Company’s agility to stay relevant with times. It has committed to offer pure, ethically priced, natural, organic, and biotechnology- based ingredients such as plant extracts, proteins,
fibers, omega-3 fatty acids, and carotenoids.
These products are further segmented by application industries such as food & beverages, pet food, animal nutrition, and dietary supplements.
R&D centers and Manufacturing
It also has 2 R&D centers located in India and 5 dedicated application labs across the globe which carry out research, studies and testing of processes and applications. With a very large global market potential and high entry barriers there is significant potential for the company to increase its product portfolio as well as enter into new geographies.
In late September 2020, the company also commissioned its much anticipated 10,000 MTPA greenfield plant in Dahej to manufacture Diphenols like Hydroquinone and Catechol which are the major raw materials for all of the company’s downstream products.
Lastly, the company also began work on setting up a 6,000 MTPA Ethyl Vanillin plant in Dahej to further bring down operating costs for the company and improve the profitability.
