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Arijit De
Mumbai, July 19: It could be the launch that both Nestle and Hindustan Lever, the leaders in India's ketchup industry, have been dreading since 1994.
Five years since kicking off its India operations with the takeover of Glaxo's food products division, US-based foods major HJ Heinz is finally on the verge of launching one of its own brands--Heinz ketchup, globally its flagship brand and the world's largest ketchup brand.
Sources closely associated with the launch of the ketchup brand said the company was gearing up for an official launch later this calendar. The company has, for the moment, decided to hold its cards relating to the launch strategies close to its chest.
Heinz India managing director Pradeep Poddar, when contacted by The Financial Express, said that while the company has definite plans to launch the ketchup brand in the Indian market, it was not an "immediate" plan. The company has yet to formally decide on the launch timing, he said. Sources associated with the launch, however, said that the company could launch the ketchup brand around October and added that pre-launch preparations were at an advanced stage.
Heinz India began operations with the acquisition of Glaxo's foods division for Rs 210 crore. It got, as a result, brands such as Glucon and Nycil powder.
Heinz ketchup will be a definite threat to both Hindustan Lever and Nestle, which own the Kissan and the Maggi brands, respectively. While Maggi is the market leader with a 52 per cent share, Lever's Kissan is close behind with a 48 per cent share in the organised sector, according to Samsika Marketing Consultants' Barometer on this industry.
Globally, the $9.2 billion HJ Heinz has around 57 products in foods, and more than 5,000 variants in all, including the flagship Ketchup brand. The total volume of the ketchup market in India is around 17,000 tonnes and valued at around Rs 90 crore.
Heinz's precise plans regarding the ketchup launch could not be ascertained at this stage. According to marketing consultant Jagdeep Kapoor, Heinz will have to invest heavily in bringing out variants of the brand with a contemporary image to compete with the two existing giants who are already fighting a neck-and-neck battle.
Maggi's success, Kapoor pointed out, lies in the many variants that the brand has stemmed out in the tomato ketchup business.
Hindustan Lever's Kissan business, which also includes some popular foods products, has a turnover of around Rs 250 crore. HLL has increasingly made its Kissan tomato ketchup portfolio ethnic with variants like Kissan Tomato Pudina, Kissan Tomchi, Kissan Tom-Imli and others, while competitor Nestle's Maggi tomato ketchup has variants in chilli-garlic and hot-n-sweet.
These Indianised versions of ketchup, say analysts, have helped improve the company's market share. Product innovation has been the key to the growth of this business, they add.
Hindustan Lever and Nestle have also expanded the brand portfolios of Kissan and Maggi to non-ketchup products.
While Levers has expanded the Kissan brand franchise to various products like soups and cooking aids besides jams and squashes, similar has been the case with Nestle whose Maggi brand has been extended to noodles and soups.
Copyright © 1999 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
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This story was printed from Net Express located at http://www.expressindia.com. Net Express provides a portal to India, with news from The Indian Express and The Financial Express along with sites on travel and tourism, the entertainment industry, the power sector, the environment and much more.
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