A Chennai-based company’s initiative to grow popcorn maize domestically has helped to bring down im-ports from 70 per cent a dec-ade ago of India’s demand to 15 per cent currently, even as domestic production has ex-panded over two-and-a-half times.
“Until 2015, the Indian market comprised popcorn maize grown in Karnataka and imported ones. With the steady expansion of maize cultivation for popcorn, the market size has grown from 50,000 tonnes to 1.3 lakh tonnes, with domestic pro-duction rising from 15,000 tonnes to 85,000 tonnes,” said SBP Pattabhi Rama Rao, Managing Director, Gour-met Popcornica Pvt Ltd.
Rao, whose family has tra-ditionally been in farming and owned sugar mills in the past, is the man behind the dramatic surge in popcorn maize production in the country and the fall in im-ports. Gourmet Popcornica, founded in 2014, has gone all out to build the country’s popcorn value chain, from hybrid seed and farmer part-nerships to kernel pro-cessing, storage, supply to cinema halls and branded re-tail products.
Gourmet Popcornica was born of a strategic partner-ship with Preferred Popcor-nica of the US, combining world-class farming expert-ise and kernel quality with Indian cultivation processing. and
“Initially, we imported these seeds and cultivated them on a trial basis during the October-December period of 2016. Then, in January-March 2018, we started cultivating them on 840 acres,” said Rao.
Today, over 17,500 farm-ers across nine States are growing this popcorn maize on over 36,000 acres (through contract farming). The crop is grown in Andhra Pradesh, where it all began in 2016, Chhattisgarh (from 2023), Telangana, Ut-tar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh and Gujarat (since 2024) and Tamil Nadu, where it was in-troduced last year and is still being tested.
INPUTS AT CREDIT
“To get growers interested, domestic output
Subramani Ra Mancombu Chennal
A Chennai-based company’s initiative to grow popcorn maize domestically has helped to bring down im-ports from 70 per cent a dec-ade ago of India’s demand to 15 per cent currently, even as domestic production has ex-panded over two-and-a-half times.
“Until 2015, the Indian. market comprised popcorn maize grown in Karnataka and imported ones. With the steady expansion of maize cultivation for popcorn, the market size has grown from 50,000 tonnes to 1.3 lakh tonnes, with domestic pro-duction rising from 15,000 tonnes to 85,000 tonnes,” said SBP Pattabhi Rama Rao, Managing Director, Gour-met Popcornica Pvt Ltd.
Rao, whose family has tra-ditionally been in farming and owned sugar mills in the
SBP Pattabhi Rama Rao, MD, Gourmet Popcornica Pvt Ltd
past, is the man behind the dramatic surge in popcorn maize production in the country and the fall in im-ports. Gourmet Popcornica, founded in 2014, has gone all out to build the country’s popcorn value chain, from hybrid seed and farmer part-nerships to kernel pro-cessing, storage, supply to cinema halls and branded re-tail products.
Gourmet Popcornica was born of a strategic partner-ship with Preferred Popcor-
nica of the US, combining world-class farming expert-ise and kernel quality with Indian cultivation and processing.
“Initially, we imported these seeds and cultivated. them on a trial basis during the October-December period of 2016. Then, in January-March 2018, we started cultivating them on 840 acres,” said Rao.
Today, over 17,500 farm-ers across nine States are growing this popcorn maize on over 36,000 acres. (through contract farming).
The crop is grown in Andhra Pradesh, where it all began in 2016, Chhattisgarh (from 2023), Telangana, Ut-tar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh and Gujarat (since 2024) and Tamil Nadu, where it was in-troduced last year and is still being tested.
INPUTS AT CREDIT “To get growers interested,
we began providing crop in-puts on credit. This elimin-ates the main problem they face-getting loans. We also buy 100 per cent of the crop despite any quality problem and pay them directly through bank transfers. All financial details are shared via WhatsApp with growers,” said the Gourmet Popcor-
nica Managing Director. The popcorn company, which employs 800 person-nel, has begun to modernise cultivation to help growers cut costs, especially on la-
bour.
“We have begun to deploy automated seed planters and will introduce corn cob har-vesters this year. The target is to mechanise the harvest of at least 10 per cent of the 36,000 acres in 2026,” said Rao.
Source : nucleus@preferredpopcorn.in
“All this, with a commit-ment on the part of Gourmet Popcornica to buy back the entire produce, is an in-dustry first,” Rao said.
Source : nucleus@preferredpopcorn.in
