The Structural Trap Behind India's Aquaculture Feed Crisis — Krishna Durgam, CEO, Anmol Feeds

Feed companies in India are operating at negative margins right now — and raising prices would only make things worse. Krishna Durgam is CEO of Anmol Feeds, operating inside one of Indian agriculture's most quietly brutal cost binds. Raw material prices have doubled or more across every major input — fish meal from ₹114 to ₹250 per kilogram, soya from ₹32,000 to ₹76,000 per ton — while feed selling prices have moved only modestly, from roughly ₹75 to ₹85–89 per kilogram. That gap isn't a pricing lag. It's the trap. Feed represents 65–70% of total farm costs. Push prices past what farmers can absorb, and the farmer exits — taking the feed company's only market with them. So the industry is stuck: unable to pass on costs, unable to keep absorbing the difference, dependent on raw material prices that don't respond to either side's constraints. In this conversation on The Grey Space, Krishna unpacks why this is a sector-wide structural condition rather than a company-specific failure, how operators are responding with asset-light models and constant formulation redesign, and why none of it solves the underlying problem — it only buys time until raw material prices correct, policy intervenes, or farmer revenues rise enough to create room for a price adjustment. In this conversation: Why feed selling prices haven't kept pace with raw material inflation The 65–70% number that makes every pricing decision existential for both farmer and feed company How feed companies are redesigning operations without solving the structural bind What would actually need to change for the sector to rebalance Guest: Krishna Durgam, CEO, Anmol Feeds Host: Pratheesh Nair The Grey Space is Amanstra Consulting's executive conversation platform — bringing leaders who are building, growing, and transforming organisations into honest, unscripted dialogue about the decisions that don't have easy answers. 📧 Nominate a leader: amir.nair@amanstra.net 💬 WhatsApp: +91 98403 46867 🔗 Connect with Amanstra Consulting: www.amanstra.com #TheGreySpace #Aquaculture #AnimalFeed #Agriculture #India #BusinessPerformance #Amanstra #CXO #FoodSecurity #Manufacturing #amirnair