Ribs and Chops to spice up Christmas
- 07 Dec 2017
- Sunaya
- Features
The well-known brand Ranch from the stables of DLG Farm Pvt. Ltd comes out with their special product – Ribs and Chops – to enliven the Christmas fervour
Kochi’s celebrity Pit Master, O K Sanjit has struck gold with the frozen meat product industry. Quitting his business in the US, this successful entrepreneur, who calls himself a chef by choice, is the owner of DLG Farm Pvt. Ltd, a business that started with pig breeding, and went on to processing pork products hygienically and organically under the brand name Ranch. Having established his business in the country, his products are already popular in Kochi. The brand is now coming out with their latest offering ‘Ribs and Chops’ in time for Christmas.
Tell us about the latest offering from your brand?
Ribs and Chops is ready to eat barbeque. We have a central kitchen, and with the orders that we receive, we make it there and deliver it to homes. It can be eaten hot.
What made you decide to choose the frozen meat products industry?
I have various businesses. I’m basically a computer engineer, educated in the US. I have worked there, and I had a business there for about 20 years. I came back and I wanted to do a few businesses here in India. I got into pig breeding. And then we got into the next level, which was frozen meat, and there is a natural organic process behind it, which is much, much healthier than the roadside meat you get.
What is the market like for your products in Kerala?
There’s a very good market for it and it is very huge. People in Kerala are very quality conscious. They only want to use the high-end, or high-quality products. There is a moving away from what we call the “wet market”, or the butchers’ market. We are slowly drifting away from that.
Did you face any challenges while setting up your business?
Actually, no. The main farm is in Karnataka. Here we only have a corporate office from which we manage our other businesses. There are only marketing outlets here. The operations are run in Karnataka and Tamil Nadu.
So when you set up your business in Karnataka, did everything go smoothly?
We never had any problem, everything went off smoothly. The government was very good and helpful. We got all kinds of support, whatever was possible in those days. It was easier to acquire land. We have a facility that spans more than a hundred acres in Mysore.
What makes your business different from the other businesses in the industry?
We are the only professionally managed pig breeding company in India. There is no other company like ours which does pig breeding and which follows our format. We use software and we have integrated it into real-time processes. That itself is unique. Each animal and its meat is traceable. Whenever an animal is born, we tag it with an eight digit number which has all the information - who the father is, who the mother is. We can track it up to 30 or 40 years. All the animals are imported from Europe or the US. It is the only traceable meat in the country today. The biggest challenge the public is facing today is knowing whether the pork comes from a good source.
How is the future looking for this industry?
Meat is not meat unless it is chilled. When you buy from the road, it is not meat, it is live muscle. You have to chill it for eight or nine hours after the slaughter occurs. It is a very good business, very profitable, no doubt about it. But the only thing is that the market is growing very slowly. The roadside meat is very cheap, whereas this is a little expensive, but it has its own advantages. So it’s all good.
Contact: 702 503 0333
Words by: Anjana K Photographs from DLG Farm Pvt Ltd
