
Snapshots of Food Industry News
Hamdard launches RoohAfza Fusion
Hamdard Laboratories has experimented with its very popular RoohAfza and launched ready-to-drink beverage called RoohAfza Fusion. The beverage is a combination of RoohAfza and pure fruit juice but the fusion drink has retained the intrinsic qualities of RoohAfza and its 10 natural herbs. Presently the company has launched five flavors, Refreshing Lemon, Delicious Orange, Juicy Mango, Exciting Pineapple & Orange and Luscious Litchi. The beverage will be available in a 200 ml packs and priced at Rs.20 each. The product has been launched at the national level but will see expansion in Maharashtra, Gujarat, West Bengal and Karnataka in coming weeks.
The more than century-old FMCG, Hamdard, has adopted a transformation strategy to target the youth who aspire for convenience and on-the-go formats. Although RoohAfza has a very loyal customer base and does well as a product somehow it has not found a connection with the new generation as they probably prefer the more ‘cool’ ready-to-drink formats. RoohAfza Fusion aims to target this group and is confident that it will prove to be ‘category shaker.’
CCI approves Reliance Retail-Heritage deal
The Competition Commission of India has given the nod to the Heritage Foods acquisition of Reliance Retail’s dairy business. Reliance Retail deal has been cleared by the CCI as a slump sale. Reliance Retail is a subsidiary of the larger Reliance Industries Ltd. The dairy arm of the business has an all India presence and the company procures, processes and distributes dairy products under the two bands Dairy Life and Dairy Pure. Heritage Foods, on the other hand, is a private sector enterprise involved in businesses like dairy, retail, bakery, agri and renewable energy.
Ninjacart raises Rs.37 crore from investors
The Bengaluru based B2B agri-marketing platform, Ninjacart has raised Rs.37 crores in series B funding. The funding has come from investors like Accel Partners, Nandan Nilekani’s NRJN Trust, Mistletoe, Qualcomm Ventures and M&S Partners. Ninjacart aims to use the funds to increase hiring and more automation of its supply chain.
Ninjacart delivers fruits and vegetables directly from farmer’s fields and has for its USP freshness and quality. The company has more than 80 fruits and vegetables on its platforms. Ninjacart wants to build a cost-efficient, reliable supply chain that can handle more than 300 tonnes a day. At present, the company moves 60 tonnes of produce a day from farm to store in less than 14 hours at a cost lower than traditional supply chains.
Dr. Oetker offers foodservice range Dr. Oetker FunFoods Professional
Dr. Oetker India has launched a new sub-brand ‘Dr. Oetker FunFoods Professional’. The foodservice range of the company is 100 years old and serves leading QSRs and HoReCa in 50 countries. It has 150 products on the platform and caters to HoReCa and many leading QSR brands like KFC, Domino’s, Pizza Hut, Taco Bell, Costa Coffee, Subway, various 5-star hotels, and airlines. In India, Dr. Oetker is an expert and retail market leader in western sauces and spreads segment but the company would like to now strengthen its foodservice division with rebranding.
The foodservice division contributes 25 percent of the overall revenue and the endeavor is to double the figures. The aim is to reinforce the brand as an expert solutions provider for western food category to be used in hotels, restaurants, cafes, bakeries, fast food joints, and caterers. The look, feel and packaging design of the range have been revamped keeping in mind the requirements of foodservice consumers. They will also include features like highlighting the applications, unique features and will have appealing food shots in contemporary design. It will also have prominent branding apart from usual statutory information. The launch will be supported by ATL & BTL activities like print advertisements, solution selling, recipe booklets, food tasting sessions, bakery & caterer’ meets and consumer education.
ITC to launch new categories of food products
ITC is planning on an overhaul of its food portfolio as some of the products are showing signs of fatigue like biscuits and snacks. ITC has become the third largest player in the packaged foods market after Nestle and Britannia. The biscuits and salty snacks category have thrown much competition in the market in the past five years but the category has become stagnant for some time now. ITC is planning to ‘premierise’ the category and to add more value to these products. Its Aashirvaad, Sunfeast, Bingo and Candyman brands have been doing good business so the new categories will be launched in these brands so they can get a push in the market.
ITC has been growing by about 15 to 18 percent in the last five years of its dominance in the food category but high volume products like the glucose biscuits have slipped. However, the cream and cookies segment has been gaining. It snacks to bridge the gap between western and ethnic namkeen snacks and in this category the company has 30 percent share as compared to 34 percent with PepsiCo. Yet this share of the market has also been stagnant and is restricted to southern India. ITC is trying to open manufacturing units in West Bengal, Assam, Punjab. ITC has also publicised the fact that it is interested in categories like chocolates, ghee, milk powder, tea, and coffee.
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