Associated Chemical Industries (Kanpur) Pvt. Ltd. Manufactures speciality chemicals. Over the past fifty-five years it has grown into a chemical maker that provides a diversified range of products for the leather industry. Today, we are the leading manufacturers of a wide range of synthetic, semi-synthetic and natural oil-based fat-liquors.

Along with our sister company Associated Chemical Industries, our group has total annual sales of 60 million rupees. We have a capacity to make 2,000 tons of chemicals each year. The annual sales of our group has doubled in the past six years. Our clients include some of the biggest exporters of leather products in the country.

We have been able to attract and retain clients because of our constant endevour to provide them with quality chemicals and services. That has been made possible by our state-of-the-art research and development center. To make our product range more comprehensive we have also acquired technical know-how for some of our products from leading Indian research laboratories such as Central Leather Research Institute, Chennai. We are now further diversifying our range of products to extend services to industries such as textiles, soaps and detergents, cosmetics and paper helped by our strong research and development skills.

Our focus on quality helps ensure that each consignment leaving our factory meets the highest of international standards. In our search for excellence, we are in the process of acquiring an ISO 9001 certification.

To ensure the leadership position of our clients we also provide them with technical solutions for their production related problems. That service ranges from making custom blended products to helping clients get that ``just the right texture and finish'' for their leather products.

The year 2001 will also see us expand our geographical market beyond Indian shores. Export of our chemicals to countries such as Bangladesh, Malaysia, Indonesia and China will begin soon.

History
Founded by K.P. Bhargava in 1945, Associated Chemicals Industries began its operations with the manufacture of surface-active agents for leather and textile industries. The beginning of the company's operation coincided with the boom of leather industry in Kanpur, located in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh.

The country's first industrial city was amongst the foremost centers both in India and abroad for the manufacture of vegetable tanned leathers. To tap this growing market ACI started making fatliquors based on sulphated and sulphonated oil and their blends. In fact, the company was the first to introduce fish oil-based fatliquors to the tanners in Kanpur and Agra, home to the Taj Mahal.

Over the next two decades, in the 1950s and 1960s the company established itself as a quality manufacturer of fatliquors. In the mid-1970s there was a change in the leather industry in Kanpur as tanners started switching to manufacture of chrome-tanned leathers. In the meantime textile companies started closing their manufacturing units and this encouraged ACI to focus on the manufacture of fatliquor. A lot more time and investments were made in strengthening research and development of new chemicals. This subsequently paid rich dividends as a range of new products were developed that were in demand especially from those leather makers who had overseas orders. Associated Chemical Industries had to gear up to the needs of the change and took up the challenge with the help of its own research and development along with the collaboration with Central Leather Research Institute, Chennai to acquire knowhow of most sophisticated fatliquors based on sulphated oils and esters.

Thus by the mid-1980s the company started manufacturing a range of semi-synthetic and synthetic fatliquors. In the early 1990s, one of the sister company's started marketing the leather finishing chemicals of Pidilite Industries Ltd., one of biggest chemical makers in India. In 2000 it started manufacturing new range of fatliquors.