Devans starts production in northeast

Jammu: Devans Modern Breweries, a leading producer of matured malt spirits and an extensive range of beer including the iconic Godfather, has given a major push to its expansion in the northeast with the commencement of beer production in Arunachal Pradesh.

Devans has been a player in the Indian alcoholic beverage market for over six decades and has added 10,000 KL of manufacturing and bottling capacity for beer by tying up with a new brewery at Namsai in Arunachal Pradesh, a spokesman of the company said.

"Arunachal Pradesh has always been a very good market for us. We have tied up with a brewery in Arunachal Pradesh to boost our production and bottling capacity and in the near future we intend to replicate the same in other States," The company Managing Director (MD) Prem Devan said. He said the Arunachal Pradesh foray would further help the firm get a better hold on the markets in the northeast.

The company owns a couple of breweries and a distillery in Jammu and Kashmir and Rajasthan. "While the plant in Rajasthan brewery is spread over 30 acres and has a production capacity of 75,000 KL of beer, the Samba (J&K) brewery has a capacity of 39,600 KL," the spokesman said. Devans also runs a distillery at Jammu, which was set up in 1961. The company would soon commission a new distillery at Samba with an installed capacity of 4,500 KL of malt spirits and 35,280 KL of Indian-made foreign liquor (IMFL).