Exclusive Interview with Mr Tapas Chatterjee, MD of SSP Pvt. Ltd.

“AFRICA IS ALWAYS A PROMISING MARKET FOR OUR RANGE OF PROJECTS”

Q. What are the core areas of expertise of SSP Private Limited?

A. SSP was established in 1977. It is an ISO 9001:2015 certified and ASMEU Stamp Holder, a leading process engineering and project company of India engaged in providing end-to-end solutions for the projects from Design, Engineering, Manufacturing, Procurement, Supply and Supervision of Erection and Commissioning with onsite training of equipment and projects. The company is driven by its technological excellence in areas of extraction, evaporation and drying providing customized turnkey projects and solutions to the industries in the area of:

• Food Processing: Projects, Plant and Machinery for Instant Tea and Spray Dried/Agglomerated Coffee, Edible and Pharma Grade Salt, Egg Powder, Coconut Milk and Powder, Agro Produce Processing, etc.

• Milk and Dairy: Projects, Plant and Machinery for Milk Powder, Malted Milk, Dairy Whitener, Condensed Milk, Whey/ Casein and Lactose Plant.

• Dairy Alternatives: Soya Milk, Almond Milk, Oat Milk, cashew nut milk, hemp milk etc and Non-Dairy Creamer (NDC).

• Cassava & Maize Processing: To produce Dry Starch Powder, Starch Derivatives like Liquid Glucose / Malto Dextrin, Fermented and Non-Fermented Flour, Gluten-Free Flour for Baby Food, Gluten etc.

• Herbal & Phyto Chemical Plants: Phytochemical / Herbal Extraction Plant, Liquorice / Licorice Extraction Plant, Bixin Extraction Plant, Other Herbal Extraction Plant, Spirulina Algae Powder Plant.Nutraceutical Plants: Soya Protein Isolate Plant, Peanut Protein Hydroslyate Plant, Baby Food Formulation / Nutraceutical Plant.

• Industrial Projects: Green Technologies with Zero Liquid Discharge System for treating Industrial Waste / Effluent for industries like Sugar, Distilleries, Pharmaceutical, Textiles, Palm Oil Mills, Paper Mills, Petrochemical, etc.

SSP has market presence in 50 countries & successfully supplied 350+ projects all over the globe. SSP has 3 manufacturing units strategically located in India and equipped with next-generation fabrication machines, holder of ASME U Stamp, Certification from CE and 3A and comply with various International Standards.

SSP has an in-house project team for supervision of erection & commissioning giving advantage of the total operation from designing to commissioning being managed under one roof.

SSP has its own dedicated Research & Development facility where apart from testing and validating new designs for their accepted performance, product trial are conducted to establish process parameter required for delivery of final product and meeting customer specifications. The R&D Centre is recognized by the Ministry of Science & Technology, Government of India and by DSIR, Govt. of India.

Q. What changes have you observed in the market over the years?

A. Despite having good business prospects and demand for the projects, plant and machinery in our area of interest, it is observed that there is an overall slowdown in the economy. New projects and investments are on hold due to various reasons. The Government has put food processing as one of the focus areas for growth and investment, but things are moving with snail speed. The sentiments of investments are very low; you can feel the liquidity crunch everywhere. Customers are not lifting material lying ready for dispatch. The exports growth rate is almost negligible in the past couple of years.

The Government needs to provide enough stimulation and push to the entire economy.

Q. What is your plan for the next five years?

A. To counter the present scenario in the domestic market, we have planned as under:
• To develop new cost-effective and energy-efficient technologies, do value engineering and value addition for the benefit of the customers.

• To enhance and strengthen our efforts in developing more Green Technologies using Zero Liquid Discharge (ZLD) technology.

• We have our presence in Africa, the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC), and South-East ASIA, the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), Russia, Far East and part of the European Union (EU). We are now diversifying our marketing activities in the Asia Pacific and South American Markets and drawn up our business plans.

• We are also exploring Joint Ventures (JVs) and collaboration with engineering companies
all over the world, who can manufacture our range of equipment, based on our technologies and design and offer single-window solutions to the local customers in their countries.

Q. Are there any policy reforms that you want from the government?

A. Every central government in the world extends support or provides huge subsidies for promoting their exports. Today, most of the incentives on exports have either been withdrawn or abolished or are on the verge of closure.

The government should re-look into areas like cash incentives, income-tax benefits, reduction in corporate tax, simple and low-cost credit facility to exporters, incentives/subsidiary on input cost of utilities, GST free input purchase for exports, etc.

Q. Are there any plans for expansion in Africa?

A. Africa is always a promising market for our range of projects. We already have our presence in countries like South Africa, Egypt, Nigeria, Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Sudan, Ethiopia, Chad, Ivory Coast and Namibia.

We do have plans to expand our presence in North and West African markets and already have some projects in pipeline. However, due to lack of timely funding, the projects are dropped or delayed.