Snapshots of Food Industry News
Mother’s Recipe plans to foray into the frozen food market
While the Pune based, packaged food brand, Mother’s Recipe is eyeing a turnover of Rs.500 crore by 2018-19, it is at the same time planning to enter the frozen food market. The brand has a portfolio that includes pickles, ready-to-cook mixes as well as cooking pastes. The brand exports the ready-to-eat food category to 40 countries and gets 40 percent share from the export market alone. However, the company now wants to take advantage of the growing frozen food market which is estimated to reach USD 306 billion by 2020. Mother’s Recipe growth and expansion plans include rolling out their exclusive ‘experience zone’ stores to all major cities in the next two to three years.
For the frozen food category, Mother’s Recipe intends to set up a unit in Gujarat. This unit will provide frozen foods both for the domestic as well as export market. According to market reports the vegetarian snack category is growing at a CARG of 22 percent and this is the segment that the company wishes to target as well as the frozen vegetable segment. The brand has a 25 percent market share in the organized pickle industry and 20 percent share of the market in the cooking paste. They feel that can garner a market share of around 10 percent both from export and domestic sales of frozen foods.
Mast Kalandar is close to acquiring funds worth $10 million
The eight-year-old Mast Kalandar, the Bengaluru-based food chain, known for its mouth-watering vegetarian delicacies has been able to garner the US $10 million from investors. Earlier, the brand had managed to pump funding from Footprint Ventures and Helion Venture Partners. Presently Mast Kalandar has 45 restaurants operating in Pune, Chennai, and Hyderabad besides Bengaluru but they wish to expand to 100 outlets in the next few years. The Delhi based Acuity Capital, an independent investment corporate advisory firm, is the exclusive advisor to this transaction. Acuity Capital works with founders to raise early-stage or growth-stage funds in consumer and technology brands.
Fresca Juices plans to raise Rs.100 crore for expansion
Fresca Juices is expected to cross a turnover of Rs.100 crore this fiscal and they intend to also raise the same amount so they can expand their operations. The juice brand wishes to increase their turnover to Rs.300 crore in the next two years and they can fulfill this goal by expanding their operations. A number of private equity investors have already approached the company and they are likely to close the deal by year-end.
Presently, Fresca is selling juices in the north in Delhi-NCR, Haryana, Punjab, Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan. They are now looking to expand operations into Madhya Pradesh and Gujarat this year and pan India in the coming three years. At the moment they have a manufacturing plant in Sonipat, Haryana but they are planning two other plants in the west and south India. They are also likely to grow their distribution reach from 50,000 outlets to 1, 25, 000 outlets by end of 2017-18. Besides expansion in the domestic market, Fresca wants to give a leg up to its scattered exports in UK and Canada and also enter the juice markets in Australia and Mauritius. They intend to increase their portfolio to include packaged drinking water, jam and ketchup segments of the food market.
Boost Juice Bars eyeing 100 outlets in India
The Australian retail chain, Boost Juice Bar, plans to strengthen its network in India and aims for 100 outlets by 2020. In India, the brand operates under the name Joost Juice Bars and has a master franchise agreement with Nature U Enterprise. They introduced the concept of natural juices and smoothies in India. The company presently operates 14 stores in Delhi-NCR and Mumbai and expect to run 30 stores by 2017 in cities like Hyderabad, Pune, Bengaluru, and Ahmedabad. Currently, the brand has outlets at airports, hospitals, shopping malls, and gyms but intends to expand into other city spaces.
The Australian company says that India posed a few challenges for them as there was lack of infrastructure, cold chains and time was consumed to build a supply chain. However, the brand feels that they now have a better knowledge of the Indian market and have established their supply chain so they feel confident that India is likely to be their fastest growing market. The two catalysts that will propel the growth of Joost Juice Bars in the country are that India is primarily a vegetarian market and the fact that Indian consumers are becoming health conscious. For this reason, Joost Juice Bars offer a highly nutritious menu which includes cold-pressed juices, smoothies, low-fat wraps and sandwiches which targets health-conscious Indians.
William Grant & Sons likely to cap bottling deal with Amrut Distilleries
William Grant & Sons, known as the third largest scotch whiskey producers, is looking towards India to bottle its high-quality whiskey. The move was planned after its competitors Diageo and Pernod Ricard installed their bottling stations in India which helped to cut down prices. Speculations are rife that the scotch whiskey brand is close to sealing the deal with Bangalore based Amrut Distilleries, to locally bottle some of its international brands.
William Grant & Sons, the130-year-old firm, is named after its founder William Grant and is the largest family-run Scottish distiller. It has several high-quality brands under its belt including Grant’s blended whiskey, Balvenie and Glenfiddich single malts and Hendrick’s gin which are imported into India by the company. However, William Grant & Sons plan to bottle only its support brands in India, since the single malt whiskey is not allowed to be bottled outside Scotland. However, William Grant & Sons said that the company is investigating all options and will not clarify speculations till such time as its plans are finalized. Chairman, Amrut Distilleries said that he has personal reasons for helping the Grant family since he has known them for a while now.
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