LAHORE: The Iqbal Group of Companies (IGC) has brought Danish technology to Pakistan’s poultry value chain in a deal aimed at exports and value addition.
The IGC, one of Pakistan’s integrated poultry conglomerates, has signed a joint-venture agreement with Denmark’s Ovodan Egg Group to set up an egg processing facility in Pakistan. The announcement was made jointly this week.
The partnership combines IGC’s domestic poultry operations, which cover production, processing and distribution through its listed subsidiary Roomi Poultry Limited, with Ovodan’s established expertise in egg processing technology and value-added product development.
Mohsin Khawaja, founder and chief executive of Iqbal Group, described the agreement as “a proud milestone”. He said it brings together Danish precision and Pakistani entrepreneurship to modernise Pakistan’s food processing industry and build export capacity.
“This agreement marks the beginning of what we believe will be a long-term partnership, contributing to Pakistan’s agribusiness sector through innovation, value addition, knowledge transfer, and sustainable growth,” said Mohsin Khawaja, founder and CEO of IGC.
The joint venture will introduce international quality standards and advanced processing technology to a segment of Pakistan’s food economy that has largely remained at the raw commodity stage. Ovodan operates under the Thornico Group, chaired by Thor Stadil, and has long experience in processed egg products and export market development across Europe and Asia.
Negotiations on the Danish side were led by Henrik Marinus Pedersen, chief executive of Ovodan Egg Group, with strategic guidance from the group’s senior adviser.Once operational, the facility is expected to add a downstream processing layer to Pakistan’s poultry sector. This will create value beyond the farmgate and open potential access to regional and international markets. Pakistan is among the world’s larger egg-producing countries but has minimal processed egg exports, a gap the joint venture intends to address.
The deal also builds on the IGC’s track record of securing foreign strategic capital. The group previously announced a partnership with a Netherlands-based investor linked to Roomi Poultry.
For the country’s agribusiness sector, the transaction reflects a growing, though still early, shift towards foreign joint ventures in food processing rather than commodity trade alone. The country’s low-cost production base and large domestic market continue to attract such interest.
Key challenges will be execution, including managing infrastructure gaps, regulatory requirements, and supply-chain integration in a market that has historically underinvested in processing capacity.Separately, Roomi Poultry is currently in the process of an initial public offering (IPO) at the Pakistan Stock Exchange and is reported to be receiving strong investor interest.
