Halder Venture is a century-old Indian agri-products company that began as a single rice and oil mill in 1924 and has since grown into one of Eastern India’s largest parboiled rice exporters and a fast-expanding edible-oil brand. The recurring approach is vertical integration - it mills the paddy, extracts the oil from the bran, refines it, and packages it in containers it makes itself, capturing value at every step rather than selling raw commodities. That same instinct to own more of the chain now shows up in a recent consolidation of five group companies into the listed entity and the acquisition of a large manufacturing site at Haldia. # Business segments Three engines built on the same grain - a rice export powerhouse, an edible-oil platform that turns a milling by-product into branded consumer packs, and a trading desk that moves everything from cashews to palm oil. ## 1. Rice: the parboiled export engine **The company is one of the largest parboiled rice manufacturers in Eastern India, shipping branded and unbranded grain to over a dozen countries from three mills with a combined capacity of 320 tonnes per day.** - **Decades-old paddy network** - some suppliers have delivered to the company for more than 40 years, and paddy is sourced by specific variety from distinct regions: Sita, Sourav and Gourav from Bihar, Minikit and Jeerakathi from East and West Medinipur, and Swarna from Birbhum and Burdwan, giving the mills a reliable, geographically diversified inflow. - **Two kinds of rice, two kinds of customers** - the company makes standard parboiled rice (kernels that are harder and less sticky after cooking) sold under brands like Bhoj, Moti and Hira in West Africa, and pressure-parboiled rice used to make muri (puffed rice for breakfast cereals and religious offerings), sold under Bhojmoti in India. - **Export model is concentrated and direct** - sales go to a single-point customer in each country, with total export exposure limited to just two or three customers, and the company runs its own marketing offices in Ghana, Benin, Cameroon, Togo and Singapore to stay close to those buyers. - **Nothing is wasted** - under a zero-waste policy, by-products like rice husk, broken rice and rice bran are all sold or used, and 100% of process water is recycled, with roughly 30% reused industrially and the rest released into surrounding farmland. ## 2. Edible oil: from rice bran by-product to branded consumer staple **What started as a way to monetise the bran left over from rice milling is now a multi-oil refining and packaging business with its own solvent extraction plant, chemical refinery, and in-house container manufacturing that cuts packaging costs by over 20%.** - **Extraction comes first** - the solvent extraction plant can process 350 tonnes per day, producing crude rice bran oil and de-oiled rice bran (DORB), which is sold as cattle, poultry and fish feed. - **Imported crude oils fill the refinery** - the 100-tonne-per-day chemical refinery runs on degummed soyabean oil shipped from Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay, and sunflower oil from Russia and Ukraine, all landed at Haldia Port and trucked 250 km to the plant, while crude rice bran oil is sourced locally from mills within a 100 km radius in Birbhum, Burdwan and Hooghly. - **Branded packs, not just bulk tins** - the company sells refined rice bran, soyabean, sunflower and mustard oils under the premium brand Odaana, and palmolein and mustard oils under Omaana, in SKUs ranging from 15-kg tins to 200-ml bottles, through a network of over 100 dealers across more than 40 cities. - **Packaging is a cost advantage, not a cost centre** - an in-house tin-container plant and an in-house bottling line for plastic bottles reduce packaging costs by over 20% and 25% respectively, so the margin on every litre sold is wider than it would be if containers were bought from third parties. - **The Haldia acquisition adds a second manufacturing site** - in March 2025 the company took possession of a 20.89-acre edible-oil unit at Haldia from K.S. Oil Limited, and by the quarter ended December 2025 packaging operations there were already running, expanding capacity beyond the original West Bengal footprint. ## 3. Trading: the opportunistic third leg **Alongside its own manufactured rice and oil, the company trades a rotating basket of agricultural commodities - raw cashew nuts from Africa, palm oil, and paddy - using the same sourcing relationships and port logistics that serve the core mills.** - **Cashews from West Africa** - raw cashew nuts in shell are imported from Ivory Coast, Tanzania, Benin and Togo, tapping the same geography where the rice export offices already operate. - **Palm oil as a newer addition** - from FY2022-23 the company began exploring the palm oil business, importing from Indonesia and Malaysia through Haldia Port, and in FY24 it packaged over 3,300 tonnes of refined palmolein oil. # Group structure and partners **Five operating entities were folded into the listed company in 2025, creating a single consolidated agri-platform, while a web of overseas subsidiaries in West Africa and Singapore puts the company close to its export customers.** - **The amalgamation simplified the group** - JDM Commercial Private Limited, P. K. Agri Link Private Limited, P. K. Cereals Private Limited, Reliable Advertising Private Limited and Shri Jatadhari Rice Mill Private Limited were merged into Halder Venture Limited with effect from January 2025, reducing overheads and legal complexity while pooling negotiating power. - **Overseas subsidiaries sit in key markets** - Hal Exim Pte. Limited in Singapore acts as the international trading arm, with step-down subsidiaries in Cameroon, Ghana, Benin, Ivory Coast and Togo, all countries where the company already exports rice. - **A technology investment adds a digital layer** - in February 2026 the company agreed to acquire a 52% stake in Inqube Technologies, which runs a cloud-based, multilingual Agri-ERP platform and generates carbon credits, suggesting an intent to digitise the agricultural supply chain.