It has already tied up with the Swedish furniture and restaurant group, Ikea, for cutlery and kitchenware supplies worth Rs 1.5 crore a month.

In an exclusive interview to The Financial Express, managing director of the group VM Lakshminarayanan said the net result of all these would be a jump in turnover from the current Rs 120 crore to Rs 200 crore in two years. Of the current business, Rs 15 crore is from exports mainly to Japan, the UK, the US, Canada and Australia. ``Substantial hike in exports also is being envisaged,'' he said.

Butterfly group is already a market leader in stainless steel pressure cookers, vacuum flasks and LPG stoves.

Its product range includes water filters, a variety of kitchen andtable wares, copper bottom utensils, hot packs, mixers etc. The new products just launched or being introduced into the market are feather-touch hi-tech mixers, table-top wet grinders with three-stone-grinding set, light and aesthetically built stabilisers of different capacities and ceiling fans.

All its products are made of stainless steel procured from the Salem Steel plant and processed at its plant in Coimbatore. ``The welding and finishing technologies are developed and perfected in-house giving a unique elegance, sheen and artefact-like perfection to all our products,'' he said.

The expansion from kitchen to the household appliances will gain additional mileage with the planned launch of the air-conditioner. Its heart, the compressor, is already designed and produced at abysmally low cost but with far superior quality features, even to the comparable Japanese products currently used by most of the a/c manufacturers, Lakshminarayanan said.

On the international front, Butterfly is revitalising itsjoint venture project with Vostok, in Tashkent, Uzbekistan. Agro Plus, Switzerland is the third partner in the venture. Full-fledged production of the butterfly range of products there is expected from July this year.

Negotiations are on for similar ventures in Russia, the details for which are being worked out. The Russian connection will open up the entire CIS market to the company.

The proposal for a project in Mauritius has been in the cold storage so far. There are signs of its coming alive again. A Mauritian team is expected to visit the Butterfly plants soon to resume the talks from where it had been left. Mauritius can be a launch pad for the African and European markets.

``But all these are only a fraction of the expansion and marketing possibilities. Kitchen and tableware industry can be developed to the level of the hosiery business. India has the raw materials, technology and labour force to do that,'' Laksminarayanan said.

This vigorous return of the Butterfly to the national andinternational arena is to be backed by well-organised media blitz.

``We were not very predominantly present in the media for the last two years owing to several reasons including financial crunch, recession in the market and a deliberate decision to go slow. Now things are changing and we are back in action with over Rs 3-cr budget for publicity campaign alone,'' he said.

The butterfly group has five companies: Gangadharam Appliances Ltd, Gandhimati Appliances Ltd, Biswanath Metals and Alloys, Laksmi Light Metal Industries and LLM Appliances Ltd. The first two are listed companies.

``Over the last 10 years, we built up a foundation with a very strong team of workmen, administrative capabilities, technological skills for production and marketing and high quality products, better than even those available in international markets. Hence a resurgence is only a natural dimension of our intrinsic strength,'' he added.

Lakshminarayanan said the inherent strength of the group is ``our vision to beeverywhere, even in advanced countries, with uncompromising quality products for permanent business relation in a well organised manner.''

The business of utensils and kitchenware is still an unorganised activity. ``It was from such a business with a few lakh of rupees turnover in the 1970s that the Butterfly brand, depicting variety, unique elegance, the feminine and house-wife-orientation of the products, has rose to a global player,'' Lakshminarayanan said.