Fourth-gen heir’s bold bioplastics bet over sugar

As Balrampur Chini Mills Ltd (BCML), a 50-year-old sugar producer in Uttar Pradesh, builds its first bioplastic plant, the company’s fourth-generation promoter already has ideas on how to further diversify beyond its sugar and ethanol business.

- Nehal Chaliawala

BCML exec director Avantika Saraogi.

(AVANTIKA SARAOGI/LINKEDIN)

Avantika Saraogi, an executive director on the board of BCML is betting on diversifying into biochemicals and other organic materials in the face of growing environmental concerns. Her plans have an unusual moat—the company’s direct connection to over 550,000 sugarcane farmers.

Besides cane, the farmers can also supply the company with biowaste, which could, in theory, become the feedstock for making bioplastics or ethanol.

“The same farmer plants everything. We as an industry are sitting on a bio-oil well. We are the oil rig,” said Saraogi, 33. “I have a 50-year relationship with my farmers. And I have 5.5 lakh farmers.”

Saraogi’s plan involves breaking down the feedstock received from farms into complex sugars and lignin. The complex sugars would then go into making biomaterials.

She is also exploring commercially viable technologies for using lignin, which is a complex polymer that lends structure and strength to plants.

“Biochemicals and biomaterials, besides bioplastics, are an ocean. PLA is not even the tip of the iceberg,” she said.