Sanstar is a family-run Indian company that turns maize into a library of invisible ingredients - the starches, sweeteners and proteins that thicken your ketchup, bind your pill or feed the fish on a farm. Founded in 1982 and run by three generations of the Chowdhary family from Ahmedabad, it has grown from a single plant into India’s second-largest exporter of maize-based specialty products, shipping to 58 countries. The recurring approach is to take a cheap, abundant raw material from the farm gate, break it apart with water and enzymes in highly automated plants, and sell every single fraction of the kernel - starch, protein, fibre and germ - to a different customer, so that nothing is wasted and every stream earns its keep.
Business segments
A single engine built on wet milling - one process that splits the maize kernel into four product families sold across food, pharma, animal nutrition and industry, with every co-product finding a paying home.
1. Maize-based specialty products: the ingredient engine behind everyday goods
The company buys maize, soaks and grinds it, then separates and refines the kernel into starches, sweeteners and protein meals that manufacturers need by the tonne - earning a margin on every fraction.
- One process, four product families - wet milling cracks the maize kernel into its building blocks: native and modified starches (the thickeners and binders), derivatives like liquid glucose and maltodextrin (the sweeteners and bulking agents), and co-products - germ for oil, gluten meal at 60-75% crude protein for livestock and fish feed, fibre for animal feed, and maize steep liquor used as a culture medium for antibiotics and vitamins.
- Sold by the tonne to industrial buyers - revenue is recognised when ownership passes to the customer, at the fair value of what’s received, net of returns and discounts; the company also books government grants and subsidies tied to its manufacturing locations as operating revenue.
- Maize is the cost dial - the single raw material accounts for roughly three-quarters to four-fifths of total cost of sales, so the crushing margin lives or dies by maize procurement and the product mix chosen each day.
- Exports are the growth lever - 34% of revenue comes from outside India, across 34 countries in Asia, Africa, the Americas, the Middle East and Europe, with export sales compounding at 26% annually between FY21 and FY26.
- End-uses span the supermarket and the hospital - the same starch can thicken a gravy, act as a disintegrant in a tablet, or serve as an excipient in a pharmaceutical formula; by revenue, food and personal care contribute about 45%, animal nutrition about 25%, and industrials and other applications about 30%.
2. Manufacturing operations: the plant network that does the splitting
Two highly automated wet-milling plants, placed near maize fields and seaports, give the company 2,350 tonnes per day of installed crushing capacity - and the land to double again.
- Kutch is the coastal workhorse - on 64 acres in Gujarat, it crushes 350 tonnes per day with a board-approved plan to lift that to 750 TPD, and sits just 100 km from Mundra Port and 55 km from Kandla Port, slashing export logistics costs.
- Proximity to the crop cuts procurement cost - the Dhule plant sources 30% of its maize directly from local farmers, with the balance coming through multi-channels including mandis, local stock houses and traders, giving the company a quality and relationship edge right at the farm gate.
- Automation and captive power keep the lines running - both plants are SCADA-controlled for consistency and safety, and Dhule alone has 50,000 tonnes of maize silos, a 1.6 MW biogas plant and 3.6 MW of solar generation, reducing dependence on the grid.
- Certifications unlock regulated markets - the company holds FDA registration, HACCP, FSSC 22000, ISO 9001:2015, Kosher and Halal certifications, and the Kutch facility is USFDA-registered, which is the ticket to sell into American pharmaceutical and food supply chains.
Group structure and partners
Sanstar is a promoter-led, publicly listed parent with no active subsidiaries - and a newly forged joint venture with a $7.2 billion global ingredient giant that brings proprietary technology and a 9% strategic stake.
- Family-controlled, professionally governed - the Chowdhary family held 70.38% of equity as of March 2025, with Gautam Chowdhary as Chairman and Managing Director and his sons Sambhav and Shreyans as Joint Managing Directors, each with over a decade on the board; the independent directors include a former ICAI president and a former executive director of Indian Overseas Bank.
- A single corporate entity - the company operates its two plants directly and has no active subsidiaries; it previously held a 99.99% stake in ECL LLP, which was sold to promoter-family members in August 2024 as a related-party transaction at arm’s length.
- Ingredion brings the recipe book - in May 2026, Sanstar signed a shareholders’ agreement with Ingredion Incorporated to create Spark Ingredients Private Limited, a joint venture 70% owned by Ingredion and 30% by Sanstar, targeting specialty pharmaceutical and other high-value ingredient markets.
- Technology meets local know-how - Ingredion contributes proprietary formulations, process technology and global applications expertise, while Sanstar brings local manufacturing, procurement and regulatory knowledge; a plant site in Gujarat or Maharashtra is being finalised, with commercial operations targeted within 30 to 36 months.
- A strategic cheque and a board seat - Ingredion’s wholly owned subsidiary Corn Products Development Inc. was allotted a 9.00% stake via a preferential issue at ₹110 per share, and its Vice President for Asia-Pacific joined Sanstar’s board as a non-executive nominee director.