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Frito Lay mulls region-specific salty snacks
Pummy Kaul
With Frito Lay India's-PepsiCo's snacks food subsidiary-second plant at Ranjangoan in Maharashtra due to become operational by May 2001, Pepsi hopes to strengthen its position in the western and southern markets as well.``With the new facility, we plan to cater to the west market which we haven't done so far,'' Mr Manu Anand, managing director, Frito Lay India told The Financial Express. The company has been, hitherto, north-dominated with its snack food factory based at Channo in Punjab with a manufacturing capacity of 4,000 tonne per annum catering to the northern belt.With a base in the west-the company's second snack food plant has a capacity of 5,000 tonnes per annum in which Pepsi has invested Rs 35 crore-the company is even considering launch of region-specific salty snacks so as to increase the static branded potato chips market. The Rs 120- crore branded potato chips market is believed to be stagnant for the last three years at about 5,000 tonnes per annum. The company-which has a 55-acre R&D farm at Channo-expects the entire requirement of potato to be sourced from contract farmers by 2004. At present, out of its total requirement of potatoes of 25,000 tonnes per annum, Pepsi is currently sourcing about 3,000 tonnes per annum from its contract farmers in Punjab, Meerut, Indore, Karnataka and now Maharashtra. Meanwhile, following a lukewarm response from the marketplace to its first ever non-vegetarian potato chips, Frito Lay plans to relaunch the product with some `re-engineering', as per Mr Anand. Copyright © 2001 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
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