The shares of food processing companies mainly those who engaged in rice processing are in limelight with the frontline stocks such as LT Foods, KRBL, Kohinoor Foods, REI Agro, Lakshmi Energy and Foods, ADF Foods and Chaman Lal Setia Exports all trading 5-10% higher on the BSE.

"Decrease in basmati crop in Pakistan will boost demand for Indian rice. Of the global basmati production of 6 MT in 2009, almost 4 MT (66%) was produced in India and rest in Pakistan. However, this year excessive rains and flood scenario in Pakistan has led to damage to the crop. As per USDA, 25% or 700,000 hectares of rice acreage is estimated to be affected by floods leading to drop in exports by 40% by volume," according to Finquest recent research report.

"Any shortfall in production of basmati paddy in Pakistan should directly benefited the Indian basmati producers as India is the only nation producing basmati rice. This should drive the volumes of rice processing companies in FY12," the report suggested.

Meanwhile, REI Agro has declared September 2010 results today, is trading 8% higher at Rs 23.30 after the company reported 46% jump in net profit to Rs 71.66 crore (Rs 48.92 crore) on year-on-year basis on backed by firm basmati prices.

LT Foods and KRBL are locked 10% upper limit of circuit filter at Rs 72.35 and Rs 40.95 respectively. Kohinoor Foods is up 8% to Rs 63.70, followed by Lakshmi Energy and Foods and ADF Foods (up 6% each).