In February 2019, Sakata Seed Corporation will open a new comprehensive operation base in Bengaluru (Karnataka state) in southern India called the Bengaluru Innovation Center(BIC) that will serve as a base for logistic operations.BIC will be in full swing from March 2019.
Its purpose is to expand our business operations in India by increasing our capacity and streamlining our product shipping, as well as shifting toward becoming one of the global base in the future. We aim to reduce our group's logistic cost globally by improving efficiency. The BIC will be a comprehensive operation base that will function as a storage facility for flower and vegetable seeds, a quality management facility for tasks such as inspecting germination rates and an administrative center such as sales, production and R&D operations in southern India.
The site area is 30,000 m2, with a total floor space of approximately 9,000 m2 that includes a warehouse, laboratory and office space. It is the largest warehouse in India that stores flower and vegetable seeds, excluding grain seeds. Construction work began in 2017 and total investment volume reached to about 1 billion yen.
In addition, close to BIC is the Bengaluru Research Station, where we develop new vegetable varieties. As a result, all the important functions, including research, production and distribution, quality management and sales will be integrated in Bengaluru. We also have a comprehensive base in North India(Gurugram, Haryana) that includes the head office function. With these two core bases in North and South India, we can respond more closely to customer's needs and further expand our business. We plan to have the BIC start operations in March 2019.