Effective entrepreneurial motivation can condition a person to mould one’s enthusiasm into a successful business model. Likely, RS Prabakar’s (Founder, Taiyo Group) fetish for maintaining ornamental fish inspired him to start a small retail shop way back in 1994 and gradually ventured into trading fish feed in India. This is when he realized that instead of importing fish feed, if he starts an independent manufacturing unit, it would cut-down the import cost and can bargain improved quality products at same price. With the zeal to animate his idea, Prabakar traded the product formula and machineries from Taiwan and founded Taiyo Group in 2002, thus was the largest production facility of animal feed born in Chennai. Presently under the brand name Taiyo, the company holds a national and overseas trade of 250 feed products in seven brand names, and even won the World Branding Award, 2019-2020 Animalis Edition in Hofburg Palace, Austria.

The first company in India to manufacture aquarium pet foods, Taiyo is also the only exporter from India exporting aquarium fish foods and small animal foods to different countries. Looking at the growing need for quality pet feed in the market, Taiyo further expanded its setup to produce feeds for birds (Petslife), turtle, dogs (Bairo), cat (Billi) and rodents. The feeds are age specific for each animal and are available at a range from economic to super premium quality according to the ingredients in use (humangrade), to suite every need of the care givers.

Trusted Production House of Quality Products

Journey from an enthusiast to an industrialist is not an easy feat to pull. Prabakar’s sound knowledge in available fish feed products in the market and the abundance of quality raw materials in India further accelerated the process. The production plant that started with a 100 ton capacity, is upscaled to produce 10 times the prior volume and currently is the prime producer of 0.5 mm pellet size feed in India. Taiyo has an efficient set of trained employees (consisting of 70 percent women) to evaluate and execute the production parameters and engages food technologists for R&D, who formulate to introduce product pipeline.

The first company in India to manufacture aquarium pet foods, Taiyo is also the only exporter from India exporting aquarium fish foods and small animal foods to different countries

To gain the market trust among the animal care givers, each product undergoes a thorough quality check. Taiyo has a quality control team to test raw materials and the feed is formulated according to the quality. The final products are sent to government labs before they are market ready. The company is ISO (ISO 9001), TUV certified and the product QA is taken care by a government body CAPEXIL, which provides the export certificate for every shipment before export of any shipment. “Our products are distributed globally to 20 countries and all across India through our distribution network. Hence it becomes imperative to keep our quality and trust intact. There is a regular task of our products being copied by other manufacturers. Hence, we are coming-up with a unique unique packaging (pattern design) as a mark of genuinity,” asserts Prabakar .

Moving Further

US branding of weaning products for animals are heavily trusted in Indian market. To substitute the sale, three years back, Taiyo introduced its new weaning formulation, which was adored by the caregivers and has boosted the sale up to five times. The company will soon launch a wet food range and super feed pellets for birds. What started with just Rs.15,000 revenue per month is currently experiencing a revenue growth of 20 percent and a turnover of Rs.30 crore per year. Prabakar is now all set to leverage his new factory with 1500 tons production capacity per month and grow its revenue to Rs.80 crore in the next five years.