Holding Aloft The Family Flag
Anuradha J. Desai stepped into her father, Banda Vasudev Rao’s shoes, when the man who had turned poultry farming into a revolution, passed away in 1996. Her father had not only taken Venkateshwara Hatcheries, its poultry products and the Venky’s brand pan India, he also founded the National Egg Coordination Committee (NECC) and was its first chairman.
The NECC primarily monitors egg prices for all its 25,000 member poultry farmers, but also promotes production, export and consumption of eggs as a preferred dietary supplement. In 1990 B. V. Rao was awarded the Padma Shri.
Desai has kept the flag (Rao hoisted) flying not just for the VH Group, which includes Venky’s (India) Limited and Uttar Foods & Feeds (run by her brothers), but for the NECC too - of which she is currently chairperson. She was the first woman to be elected president of the World Poultry Science Association for four years in a row from 1996. Desai has a doctoral degree from the Tamil Nadu University of Veterinary and Animal Sciences and a Bachelor’s degree in Arts and Law from Pune University, in Maharashtra.
Today the Pune-based VH Group has, through strategic collaborations, diversified into SPF eggs, chicken and eggs processing, broiler and layer breeding. It is engaged in genetic research and poultry diseases diagnostic, poultry vaccines and feed supplements, vaccine production, bio-security products, poultry feed and equipment. The group also makes nutritional health products and soya bean extract.
The VH Group has offices in many parts of the world, including England, Switzerland, South Africa and Brazil. Products of group companies are exported to more than 40 countries. The VH Group is co-owner of the 142-year-old Blackburn Rovers club.
Venky’s (India), which B. V. Rao had begun as Venkateshwara Hatcheries with a brood of 500 fowls, is today the largest integrated poultry group in Asia. The company went public in the 1990s. Apart from poultry farming, the company produces processed chickens, pathogen (specific) - free eggs and nutritional health products. Its range of 39 ready-to-eat chicken variants jostle for market space with competing poultry brands both in the home market and overseas. The Venky’s range of products are now exported to many countries around the world.
It’s chairperson has managed to keep herself away from the limelight, notwithstanding her 30 years’ involvement with the industry. She does manage to carry the weight of big responsibilities on her slender shoulders though, for the VH Group serves as an umbrella for all the group companies from BV Biocorp to Uttara Bio Science.
The flagship Venky’s (India) saw its profits surge 66.43 per cent in the first three quarters of FY 18. “It becomes easier to understand what makes the company prosper,” Desai says in the company’s annual report, predicting that the poultry industry (now estimated to be worth Rs 100,000 crore) would simply continue to grow.
