Venky's (India) Limited, formerly known as Western Hatcheries Limited was incorporated in July, 1976 as a private limited, mainly to produce day-old layer and broiler chicks for the dense poultry markets of North India. Dr B V Rao promoted the company. The company was converted into a public limited company on December 12, 1998.
Venky's (India) Limited, a part of the VH Group is an integrated poultry group in Asia. The Company has diversified its activities in poultry sector that includes production of SPF eggs, chicken and eggs processing, broiler and layer breeding, animal health products, Poultry feed & equipment, soya bean extract and many more. The Company has its growing and other manufacturing facilities across India and sells primarily in India. Venkateshwara Hatcheries Private Limited, the holding Company owned 51.61% of the Company's equity share capital as of March 31, 2024.
The Company's major business segment is poultry and poultry products which consist of production and sale of day old broiler and layer chicks, specific pathogen free eggs, processed chicken products and poultry feed. The company has its animal health products manufacturing facility at Pune. The company is also involved in solvent oil extraction.
In May 1985, the company commissioned SPF Eggs Division with an installed capacity of 300,000 SPF eggs per annum. They are the only commercial producer of SPF Chicken embryos in India. In June 1992, the company set up a 100% export oriented unit at Pune for export of hatching eggs with a capacity of 30,000 broiler breeders. The name of the company was changed from Western Hatcheries Ltd to Venky's (India) Ltd with effect from June 21, 2000.
During the year 2000-01, the company commissioned an Edible oil refinery with a capacity of 50 tonnes per day. Also, they entered into a business association with the US based Alltech Inc to market their animal nutritional products in India.
During the year 2002-03, Venky's Foods (India) Ltd, the wholly owned subsidiary company was amalgamated with the company with effect from October 1, 2001. Also, the company diversified into pet food business and constituted a new division named 'Royal Pet'.
During the year 2003-04, the company disposed of their entire holding in their 100% subsidiary, namely Venkateshwara Management Services Ltd, in order to focus on the company's core activity and to realign their investment portfolio. During the year 2004-05, they expanded their production capacity of De Oiled cake for poultry feed from 49,200 MT to 98,400 MT.
During the year 2005-06, the company disposed off their Animal Health Products Unit to Venkateshwara Bios entry (India) Ltd. Also, they increased the production capacity of SPF eggs from 3,200,000 Nos to 4,400,000 Nos. During the year 2006-07, the company increased the production capacity of Chick and SPF Eggs to 92,505,499 Nos and 5,400,000 Nos respectively. Also, they expanded the production capacity of poultry feed by 21,000 MT to 142,800 MT.
During the year 2007-08, the company increased the production capacity of Chicks by 15,881,915 Nos to 108,387,414 Nos. During the year 2008-09, the company expanded the production capacity of poultry feed by 23,200 MT to 155,400 MT and nutritional health products by 54 MT to 90 MT.
During the year 2013-14, the Company acquired poultry and packaging business operations, on going concern basis, of Venkateshwara Hatcheries Private Limited-its holding company-at a cost of around Rs. 75 crores. The acquired units are situated in Northern India in the States of Haryana, Punjab, Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand.
During the year 2016, the Company has issued and allotted 4,695,779 bonus equity shares in the ratio of 1 bonus share for every 2 shares held. As a result, the paid-up equity share capital increased from Rs.939.16 lacs to Rs.1,408.74 lacs.
The Company completed two new projects following the expansion in oilseed segment by setting up a new solvent extraction plant and vegetable oil refinery; and expansion of Specific Pathogen Free eggs capacity by setting up new production unit in 2019-20.
The Company's new manufacturing unit of the Animal Health Products segment commenced commercial production in March, 2024.