PRAN-RFL Group () is a Bangladeshi conglomerate, founded in 1981 by Amjad Khan Chowdhury. It is one of the largest conglomerates in Bangladesh Pran-RFL Group is headquartered in

Dhaka Dhaka ( or ; , ), List of renamed places in Bangladesh, formerly known as Dacca, is the capital city, capital and list of cities and towns in Bangladesh, largest city of Bangladesh. It is one of the list of largest cities, largest and list o ...

, Bangladesh, and employs over 1,00,000 people worldwide making it the largest employer brand in the country. The group operates under several subsidiaries, including Pran Foods, RFL Plastics, Pran-RFL Healthcare, and many others. Pran Foods is the flagship company of the group and RFL is the subsidiary company mostly consisting of plastic and steel products.

History

PRAN (Programme for Rural Advancement Nationally) was established in 1981 by retired Major General Amjad Khan Chowdhury and has become one of the largest food and beverage brands in Bangladesh. PRAN pioneered agribusiness in Bangladesh by providing farmers with guaranteed prices. PRAN Foods, a subsidiary of the PRAN-RFL Group, produces a number of agricultural products under the PRAN banner. PRAN established a subsidiary company in

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in 2003. In 2008, the company announced plans to open a production facility in

Tripura Tripura () is a States and union territories of India, state in northeastern India. The List of states and union territories of India by area, third-smallest state in the country, it covers ; and the seventh-least populous state with a populat ...

India India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area; the List of countries by population (United Nations), most populous country since ...

, after the Indian government lifted the ban on direct investment from Bangladesh in 2007. The PRAN group's exports had reached 10 billion taka by 2016, with the biggest markets for the company in India,

Saudi Arabia Saudi Arabia, officially the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), is a country in West Asia. Located in the centre of the Middle East, it covers the bulk of the Arabian Peninsula and has a land area of about , making it the List of Asian countries ...

, the UAE,

Malaysia Malaysia is a country in Southeast Asia. Featuring the Tanjung Piai, southernmost point of continental Eurasia, it is a federation, federal constitutional monarchy consisting of States and federal territories of Malaysia, 13 states and thre ...

, and

Oman Oman, officially the Sultanate of Oman, is a country located on the southeastern coast of the Arabian Peninsula in West Asia and the Middle East. It shares land borders with Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Yemen. Oman’s coastline ...

. The same year the revenue for PRAN exceeded US$500 million. PRAN started exporting potatoes in March 2016. In April 2016, PRAN started to export

cassava ''Manihot esculenta'', common name, commonly called cassava, manioc, or yuca (among numerous regional names), is a woody shrub of the spurge family, Euphorbiaceae, native to South America, from Brazil, Paraguay and parts of the Andes. Although ...

and the first shipment, worth US$3 million, was sent to New Zealand. PRAN has 80 thousand direct employees and 200 thousand indirect employees. PRAN exports to over 118 countries. PRAN started exporting through river route to India from Bangladesh in March 2021. Pran-RFL Group has several joint ventures with international companies, such as

PepsiCo PepsiCo, Inc. is an American multinational corporation, multinational food, snack, and beverage corporation headquartered in Harrison, New York, in the hamlet of Purchase, New York, Purchase. PepsiCo's business encompasses all aspects of the f ...

Danone Danone S.A. () is a French multinational corporation, multinational food-products corporation based in Paris. It was founded in 1919 in Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain. It is listed on Euronext Paris, where it is a component of the CAC 40 stock mark ...

, and

Nestlé Nestlé S.A. ( ) is a Swiss multinational food and drink processing conglomerate corporation headquartered in Vevey, Switzerland. It has been the largest publicly held food company in the world, measured by revenue and other metrics, since 20 ...

Businesses

PRAN-RFL Group contains two Groups, called PRAN-Group & RFL-Group. Businesses operating under these groups contains several registered companies/businesses. Below are some of them-

Duranta

Duranta a part of the group makes bicycles for the international and domestic market. They launched the countries first ebike. The venture started in 2015.

Proton

Proton Mobile is the brand for the group's manufactured and marketed feature phones and

smartphones A smartphone is a mobile phone with advanced computing capabilities. It typically has a touchscreen interface, allowing users to access a wide range of applications and services, such as web browsing, email, and social media, as well as mult ...

References

{{reflist Food product brands Bangladeshi brands Conglomerate companies of Bangladesh Food and drink companies of Bangladesh Manufacturing companies of Bangladesh Bangladeshi companies established in 1981