Incorporated in Dec.'84 as a public limited company, Hindustan Foods (HFL) is promoted by the Marmagoa Shipping and Stevedoring Company Pvt Ltd (MSSC). The company manufactures nutritional foods, cereal foods and products based on soya bean. It came out with a public issue in Nov.'87 to created and deployed a food-processing unit at Ponda, Goa, with a capacity of 5000 tpa. Commercial production commenced in Jan.'88 and the products were formally introduced all over India only in Dec.'88 under the Bonny Mix brand name.

Glaxo which had participated in the equity of the company, apart from providing technical and marketing assistance to the company, withdrew their participation in 1992-93. The company was marketing its products under the brand name Bonny Mix, executed a strategic acquisition of from Glaxo. Due to the withdrawal of Glaxo, the company had a substantial fall in the sales volume, consequent to which, it started making losses. It had to close its operations from Dec.'92 which was resumed in Dec.'93. In 1994-95, HFL introduced two products - Bonny Meal Rice and Bonny Meal Fruit.

The company's products were not well-accepted by the consumers. The weak marketing at the retail level further aggrevated the situation and the consumer off-take was very poor. All these prompted the company to discontinue the production again, in Jul.'95. Reference was made to the BIFR, which has replied that the company has not yet come under its purview.

After the suspension of production since July'95, the company has resumed production from October'97. It has been producing the Farex cereal based weaning foods for Heninz India Private Limited which is marketed throughout India.