Your views on the tea industry, post WTO.
We are bound to face some kind of restructuring in the domestic market. It could be through acquisition of gardens by the larger groups.

The smaller gardens will eventually find it difficult to sustain the costs of production and it will make economic sense for them to sell off their properties, or enter into some alliances with the bigger groups.

On Duncans plans to stay ahead of the competition, post WTO.
We plan to combat competition by going in for a two-pronged attack. First, we will be looking at more tea, possibly through acquisitions and increased auction buying. Secondly, we are thinking of having a diversified product line.

Does that mean you would move to marketing of products other than tea?
Yes, we plan to be an FMCG company dealing with products other than tea as well. We are yet to draw up the final plans for the products to be marketed. But, we do have interest in spices, rice, etc. In tea itself we plan to introduce tea bags as a value-added product.

On your existing brands
We are revamping the image of our fast moving brands such as Double Diamond.

The economy segment has been growing, but margins are less as they have to compete with loose tea. Runglee Rungliot is in the priced category.

A possible generic promotion could help improve salability of Darjeeling tea. We plan to invest more in consumer loyalty.

On your increasing dependence on auction tea.
This will have to increase as we plan to move into the packet tea segment in a big way. Currently, we pack almost all the tea that we produce.

Apart from eying gardens, we will also blend auction tea in some of our tea.