Snapshots of Business News
Sydney-based FAL to Introduce New Categories of Natural Health Drinks
Australian food and beverage major, Flavor and Life (FAL) is all set to enter the nutritional food and beverage Indian market through its flagship brand, Coco Joy. Coconut water has become the favourite drink of the health conscious Indian consumer and that is the reason FAL is introducing its branded coconut water through its subsidiary. The company’s mission is health and nutrition and so they specialise in producing, distributing and manufacturing natural and healthy beverages. They have even got a sport personality like cricketer Vivian Richards of the West Indies to endorse their coconut water.
After the September launch of the coconut water, over the next few months, the company will also introduce new categories of Juices, Vitamin Water, Isotonics and Nutrition Bars in India which will provide healthier beverage and food options for Indians. The company feels it can encourage consumers to change their mind-set towards opting for natural and healthy foods. Consumer requirement for healthy food alternatives is pushing growth in the Indian nutraceutical market which is estimated to cross USD 6.1 billion by 2020.
Spencer’s launches two more Hypermarkets in Hyderabad
With the opening of two more hypermarkets in Hyderabad, the RP- Sanjiv Goenka Group, Spencer’s has a total of five hyper stores in Hyderabad which is the highest in the country. Spencer’s now has 120 stores across 35 cities which attract a footfall of over four million each month. It was in Hyderabad that the company had opened its first hyper store in Musheerabad. The other stores are in Karimnagar and Warangal districts of the new Telangana state.
The new stores in Hyderabad’s L B Nagar and Ramanthapur were inaugurated by musician M Balamuralikrishna. Since the aim of the hyper stores is to fulfil every consumers’ requirement they offer more than 20,000 affordable products. These include 120 variants of organic foods, frozen foods as well as fresh fish and meat, patisserie, live bakery products, dairy, 350 varieties of nuts and dry fruits, a wide range of takeaway foods besides spices and apparel.
Teabox comes up with innovative personalised tea subscription service
Advance in technology has not only reached the food industry but is leading to creation of innovative machines. The Siliguri based e-tailer ‘Teabox’ has launched a personalised tea subscription service. With the help of a machine learning technology, tea is matched with each individual’s taste from a selection of teas. The tea is personalised through words that describe the attributes of tea which are then matched with user’s preferences, habits and taste characteristics. Words like floral, astringent and sweet that describe teas have been quantified into 75 attributes. Through matching the attributes with the choice of users the machine will predict a tea that is best suited to the individual’s taste preference.
In the first stage the user has to go to the e-tailer’s website and answer five questions. The answers are submitted to the Teabox prediction engine. Each user is assigned a signature according to how they responded to the questions. The machine’s algorithms then search and identify a selection of teas that best suit the ‘signature’ profile. As the users repeat and share their experience with Teabox’s prediction engine it improves its understanding and matches tea better for them. This personalised tea experience comes with a subscription of USD 9.99 (Rs 650) to USD 39.99 (Rs 2604.37) per month. This innovative, first of a kind tea predicting machine is waiting a patent.
Jain Irrigation to Sell Food Business to its own Subsidiary
With the aim of creating a strategic focus on fast growing food business Micro-irrigation firm Jain Irrigation Systems has approved the ‘slump sale’ of its food business. The food business will be sold to its Wholly Owned Subsidiary (WoS), Jain Farm Fresh Foods Ltd. With the sale of the food business to the subsidiary the Board of Directors will also form a Sub-Committee comprising of three directors to look into the transactions between the two companies.
The food business arm of Jain Irrigation Systems comprises of food manufacturing units at Jalgaon in Maharashtra, Vadodara in Gujarat and Chittoor in Andhra Pradesh besides other subsidiaries that carry out food business activities for them. This will leave the irrigation firm free to strengthen their end to end solutions by creating water resources and usage of water appropriately and link them to market.
Catch Spices to earn Rs.600crore revenue for Dharampal Satyapal Group
The Noida based Dharampal Satyapal Group is expecting a 50 per cent rise in revenues from Catch Spices in the FY 15. The company had debuted with Catch pepper and salt as a table top dispenser category in 1987 and it still remains the leader in this segment. The company now also sells a range of spices under the Catch brand and had posted revenues of Rs.400 crore last fiscal. The expected increase in revenue this fiscal is likely to result from the consolidation the company has undertaken in its distribution network across the country.
The company has around 1,600 distributors for Catch. It has been steadily increasing revenues by 30 per cent in the last three years. It is now planning to expand its reach through sale of small sachets of Catch spices. They have identified around 50 distributors for Catch spice sachets in Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. The company is also planning to scale up distributors across the country by another 200. Increasing their sale outlets to 2, 50,000 from the present 2 lakhs is also on the company’s agenda. Besides FMCG, the company also has a presence in hospitality, packaging and infrastructure.
Delhi to get a taste of Jamie Oliver’s
Jamie Oliver, the celebrity British chef, will soon launch his first restaurant in Delhi. Jamie Oliver is an Italian food restaurant chain, which has 30 restaurants across the world. In India they would launch Jamie’s Italian and Jamie’s Pizzeria by this festival season. Jamie’s Italian will serve full Italian menu while Jamie’s Pizzeria will serve innovative and delicious thin crust pizzas, salads, sides and desserts. The two restaurants are likely to come up in Ambience Mall Vasant Kunj and Gurgaon.
Jamie Oliver restaurant brands in India are a joint venture between International Market Management, a London investment and management company, and Carnation Hospitality. Carnation hospitality is Delhi based and also promotes Wendy’s and Barista in India. They have decided to first launch in Delhi as it already has a vibrant food scene. They say that they have sourced the Italian food with great care and hope to bring something new, yet affordable to the market. Later they hope to expand into other cities in keeping with Jamie Oliver’s expansion plans for India, Brazil and China.
Belgian Fries opens at Terminal 1D New Delhi Domestic Airport
Terminal 1D New Delhi Domestic Airport becomes the first airport to have an outlet of Belgian Fries. Belgian Fries will offer sumptuous options to travellers with their, perfectly cut, fully loaded fries, hotdogs, lasagne and chicken strips. Lite Bite Foods, the food and beverage company, already has quite a portfolio of QSR through which they have been able to generate good revenues. They hope to see Belgian Fries doing quite as well as the other airport outlets on their list.
Besides having the franchise for Krispy Kreme, 4700 BC Popcorn, Café Delhi Heights; Lite Bite Foods also runs the Street Food by Punjab Grill outlet at T3 terminal and a Baker Street outlet. The company has also tied up with HMSHost to acquire the rights to launch and operate outlets at Airports across India and Asian countries. More than 40 million passengers travel annually at IGI and this potential for high footfalls is not lost on emerging brands eyeing travel hubs.
Appointments
Yum Brands declares Micky Pant as CEO, China division
Micky Pant, 60, has been appointed as the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Yum Brands Inc. China division. Pant succeeds Sam Su, 63, who has announced his plans of retirement. Sam Su has been a restaurant industry pioneer in China as he helped the company to establish KFC and Pizza Hut as global powerhouses in that country. Yum Brands is based in Louisville, Kentucky and has 41,000 restaurants in more than 125 countries. Brands like KFC, Pizza Hut and Taco Bell are the global leaders in chicken, pizza and Mexican-style food categories.
The transition is likely to be seamless as Sam Su has built a strong leadership team. Micky Pant has been one of the most effective and visionary leaders at Yum Brands for the past decade. Micky Pant’s abilities to leverage the China market for KFC and Pizza Hut could be challenging as the once fastest growing economy is now wading in troubled waters.
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