The Heritage Group was founded in 1992 by Telugu Desam Party Chief and former Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh Shri Nara Chandrababu Naidu, with three-business divisions viz., Dairy, Retail and Agri under its flagship Company Heritage Foods Limited, one infrastructure subsidiary - Heritage Infra Developers Limited and other associate Companies viz., Heritage Finlease Limited, Heritage International Limited and Heritage Agro Merine Private Limited. The annual turnover has crossed $200 million USD during FY 2008'09. Heritage’s milk products have market presence in Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra, Delhi, Rajasthan and Punjab. It has retail stores across Bangalore, Chennai, Hyderabad and Visakhapatnam. Integrated agri operations are in Chittoor and Medak Districts and these are backbone to retail operations. In the year 1994, HFL went to Public Issue to raise resources, which was oversubscribed 54 times and its shares are listed on BSE and NSE. Heritage Foods has its headquarters in Hyderabad, Telangana, India.
The Dairy Brand - Heritage
Heritage by choosing Chittoor district of Andhra Pradesh as its primary procurement base of milk, had taken full advantage of the large, high yielding and cross-bred cow population found in the area. Today Heritage has network in the states of Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra and Delhi for procurement and distribution of quality milk and milk products. Heritage products are also distributed in the state of Kerala. Heritage has drawn plans to be a pan-India player in the dairy.
Products
Heritage's dairy range of products among others include milk, curd, ice cream, buttermilk, flavored milk, dairy whitener, skim milk powder. The Fresh range of products include 177 sku's of fresh fruits and vegetables, 150 sku's of in house bakery products and the private labels Farmers' Pride like cereals, pulses, staples, and spices.
Controversy
Motaparti Siva Rama Vara Prasad, who was a director of the company, was also chairperson of a number of committees like Audit, Remuneration and Risk Management. On 3 April 2016, his name featured in the list of high-profile names released in the Panama Papers, a set of 11.5 million confidential documents created by the Panamanian corporate service providerMossack Fonseca. When questioned by journalists whether his holdings were the proceeds of political corruption or tax evasion, he replied that he was an international businessman with companies in three continents established over the last 30 years. But the article also highlighted his ignorance on the fact that he didn't know who his agents were when setting up these off-shore shell companies or why he decided to use nominees to hide his name from the true ownership. Since he is a very close confidant of N. Chandrababu Naidu and the distinct possibilities of linking these companies to money laundered through corruption in politics, he was asked to resign from his post as director to try to reduce the exposure of the Chief Minister and the Panama Papers.
