Snapshots of Food Industry News
Marico Enters Soup Segment with Saffola Active Soups
Marico has entered the soup segment with the launch of Saffola Active soups in competition with Hindustan Lever and Nestle. Marico has termed this move as a strategy to provide in-between healthy snacks and add premium products to its portfolio, in a bid to increase revenues to the targeted Rs.10, 000 crores by 2020.
The Rs.450 crores soup market is riding on the wave of increasing urbanization, rising incomes and healthy choice in foods.
Marico intends to change the perception of its packaged foods to healthy products on consumer preference. Therefore, Saffola Active soups have five times more fiber than any other popular brands in the market. Marico has established a new business team called Engine 2 that will help to create new categories of healthy foods, including nutraceuticals. These foods will help heart health and weight management even though they are termed in-between meal snack foods. The company is looking to drive more innovation in foods just like their salt and oats, rice and meal replacement beverage as they think innovation and experimentation will drive growth.
Keventers Planning 32 Outlets in Hyderabad by 2019
Dairy brand Keventers has announced plans to open 15 more outlets in Hyderabad. It is only recently that the brand had entered the Hyderabad market and had initially opened three outlets. With the addition of these new stores in Hyderabad, within the next few months, Keventers would be able to reach a tally of 32 outlets in Hyderabad by 2019. Keventers has outlets in Delhi, Mumbai, and Bengaluru already and increasing their outlets in Hyderabad would propel it to fourth place and would also increase turnover to Rs.20 crore from here.
The south has a huge potential for the milkshake market and Hyderabad is expected to play a key role in popularising their huge range of milkshakes. Keventers milkshakes have unique flavors in all different beverage categories, like thick shakes, fruit shakes, and hot beverages. Presently Keventers has 170 outlets in 30 locations in key Indian cities. It also has plans to foray into Dubai and Nepal. They plan to double their footprint across the globe that is spread in Americas, Middle East, and Africa, by opening more than 300 outlets in the current fiscal.
Pristine Organic Introduces Millet Food Products
Pristine Organic is a pioneer in manufacturing organic and nutritional products from diverse crops. They have recently introduced a range of organic millet based products like Pristine’s Breakfast cereals in varieties like Mixed Millet Flakes and also mixed with Ragi Flakes or with Corn Flakes and also offer Mixed Millet Porridge. This healthy breakfast cereal comes with a twist to the traditional Indian breakfast. Besides having no added sugars these cereals are minimally processed. On the other hand, Pristine biscuits are made with five different varieties of millets and are rich in fiber, MUFA, PUFA, Trans fat-free and have the low glycaemic index.
Millet is one of the oldest foods known to human beings and in recent years has reclaimed its position as a nutritionally superior food. Global warming and food security have brought a resurgence in millet foods with nutritionists and chefs recommending it for its rich dietary fiber content. Pristine’s certified baby foods include 1st Bites and are made age appropriate for different stages of development of the child. They have also launched Poushtik nutritional supplements for families like Balance Active, Balance HP and Balance PL which is for pregnant and lactating mothers.
Coca-Cola to Launch First Thumbs-Up Variant
Coca-Cola has decided to launch a stronger variant of Thumbs Up called Thumbs-Up Charged. The variant is the first for Thumbs-Up in 40 years and is in line with their commitment to offering more choices to consumers. Thumbs-Up Charged is more carbonated, is stronger with more thunder but there is no change in the sugar content. Coca-Cola had acquired Thumbs-Up from Parle in 1993 and according to a Nielsen report it is now the country’s leading Coca-Cola brand and is even ahead of Coca-Cola itself and rival Pepsi.
Tea Board Looking to Promote Tea Consumption
The Tea Board has decided to create a generic campaign that will promote tea drinking, just like the 2013 campaign that it had launched ‘Chai Pio Mast Jio.’ Since tea production has increased there is a need to also increase tea consumption. Tea drinking in India is presently growing at an annual rate of 3 percent. The Tea Board has asked stakeholders and the industry for its opinion on the promotion campaign. Their criteria are that the campaign must promote tea as a health and lifestyle drink and it must be in a language that everyone in the country can relate to.
Formerly the Tea Boards campaigns have directed their attention to promotion campaigns in foreign countries. Since exports have remained stagnant the Tea Board wishes to target the domestic consumer, especially the youth who like to drink tea if it’s the type they prefer. The per capita tea consumption is 650 grams and the industry would like to take it to 800 grams. The Tea Industry also wants the government to help in their campaign, to promote tea consumption, by providing free paper cups to roadside vendors.
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