Mapro Foods Plans To Spread Its Wings

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Mumbai: : Mapro Foods, the Mahabaleshwar-based makers of squashes, jams and confectioneries is looking for a pan-national presence for its products. The 25-year-old brand, primarily known in the western region, is targeting the northern and southern regions of the country.

Under this, 16 cities in the north and 10 cities in the south will soon start stocking Mapro brand products.

Mapro Foods CEO Mayur Vora told FE that the focus is now on the northern and southern regions after establishing a presence in cities like Mumbai, Pune and Ahmedabad. The strategy adopted by the company is to focus on cities offering high potential. That is why it is more bullish on its foray into the northern and southern

regions rather than penetrate into the hinterland of Maharashtra.

“In the north, we are beginning with Delhi and will subsequently take our products to cities like Kanpur, Lucknow and those in Punjab. The foray in the southern market will begin in six months, where initially we are targeting 10 cities,” Mr Vora said.

The company is in the process of establishing a sales force to monitor the spread in these regions. The strategy is to have a single distributor for each city to ensure product placement in the supermarkets, shopping malls, dryfruit shops and general grocery stores. In order to track the movement of products from the distributor to the retailer, Mapro is putting in place an online module which will enable the sales force to feed daily sales trends and figures.

“A single distributor for the city and its vicinity enables us to exercise better control over the inventory and also ensures better accountability,” Mr Vora added.

On brand-building activities, Mr Vora said the company will concentrate on point-of-sales promotion rather than embark on a grandiose brand-building activity involving print and electronic media.

He said Mapro as a brand was small to sustain a large-scale media blitz. That is why the initiatives have been restricted to point-of-sale promos.

Since Mahabaleshwar is a premier hill station in Maharashtra, attracting tourists by the thousands, brand-building is conducted through free tasting counters for jams, crushes, syrups, squashes and confectionery, he added.

“Footfalls at our factory premises enables us to promote our brand through word-of-mouth which to a large extent has been instrumental in our success in the western region,” Mr Vora said.