The 84-year-old Carew & Co (Bangladesh) Limited, a state-owned distillery located in the Darshana area of Chuadanga's Damurhuda upazila, registered record sales in fiscal 2021-22 thanks to increased demand for its distillery products.

Carew, which operates under the Bangladesh Sugar and Food Industries Corporation, saw its total sales for the year exceed Tk 400 crore, of which Tk 367 crore came from its distillery unit.

As such, the company is expected to make a profit of more than Tk 100 crore from this segment, up by about 43 per cent from around Tk 70 crore in fiscal 2020-21.

However, Carew's sugar refinery continues to struggle and although the authorities have yet to calculate the total losses for fiscal 2021-22, it was Tk 14.63 crore the previous year.

Company sources say the sale of their alcoholic products increased by more than 50 per cent compared to that of FY21, when its sales from the segment grew by 30 per cent from the year before.

Carew sold more than 10 lakh proof litres of alcohol in the just concluded fiscal, when a total of nine brands under the company sold an average of between 12,000 and 13,000 cases per month. The brands are: Yellow Label Malted Whisky, Gold Ribbon Gin, Fine Brandy, Cherry Brandy, Imperial Whisky, Orange Curacao, Zarina Vodka, Rosa Rum and Old Rum.

The sources went on to say the demand for their alcoholic products has increased several times over the past year due to the current restrictions on importing foreign liquor.

In 2021, the National Board of Revenue increased its vigilance on liquor imports to prevent duty evasion through illegal shipments. This led to a shortage of foreign liquor in authorised bars throughout the country and since then, Carew has expanded production to meet the demand.

According to company officials, they currently produce about 10.80 lakh proof litres of alcohol, 26 lakh litres of spirit and 8 lakh litres of denatured spirit for both the domestic and international markets.

Apart from alcohol, Carew also makes products like vinegar, hand sanitizer, fertilisers, sugar and molasses. Carew is the sole licensed distillery producing alcohol from sugarcane molasses in the country.

Fidah Hasan Badsha, general manager of the distillery unit, said that apart from alcohol, the production of organic fertilisers has also been profitable for the company.

Mosharraf Hossain, managing director of Carew, said the government has undertaken a project of Tk 102.21 crore for the company's development.

Once the project is complete, the production process will be fully automated and its capacity will double.

The company currently has three sales centres in Darshana, Dhaka and Chattogram but plans to expand its market by establishing another three in Rumu upazila in Cox's Bazar, Iswardi upazila in Pabna and Kuakata in Patuakhali.

Likewise, Carew wants to build one warehouse each in Rajshahi and Ramu to add to its 13 warehouses at present.

The Narcotics Control Department has already approved the construction of two new sales centres in Iswardi and Ramu, Hossain said.

He then said a Memorandum of Understanding has been signed with the Tourism Corporation to operate the outlets and that most of the sales in FY22 came from the Dhaka and Sreemangal warehouses.

"If this trend continues, Carew will be able to contribute much more to the country's national treasury," the managing director added.

The company's success in FY22 did not come easy though as sugarcane threshing at its mill in Chuadanga hit an all-time low earlier in the year.

The primary cause for such a disruption to the supply chain was identified as a lack of fertilisers while many farmers were also to blame for producing an older variety of the crop instead of the new, high-yielding one.