Nutrine aims 30% growth to touch Rs 400-cr sales by ’04

Our Corporate Bureau

Chennai, Oct 3: Nutrine Sweets Private Limited is targeting a turnover of Rs 400 crore by 2004 - an average growth of 30 per cent per annum from the current Rs 180 crore.

Apart from entering high-value and high volume categories like natural fruit bars and phasing out 25 paise category products, the company is also looking at introducing new products in the confectionery segment every year.

Speaking to The Financial Express, Mr Sivamohan Reddy, executive director of Nutrine Sweets, said that the company is looking at introducing nut-based chocolates, eclairs and candies with ethnic taste - mango and tamarind - in the the Re 1 slot. For the organised sugar-boiled confectionery industry, Re 1 currently is the highest price point and less than 10 per cent of its market, estimated at Rs 750 crore, comes from it.

Nutrine is trying to increase the revenue-share of its Re 1 category to 15 per cent from the present seven per cent.

The company is planning to gradually phase out the 25 paise category, which accounts for around 35 per cent of its product portfolio, in the next two to three years. This category results in maximum losses for the company as it does not enable it to pass on the excise duty it incurs to the customer.

The company has to absorb the whole lot, said Mr Reddy. The Government had increased the excise duty on sugar-boiled confectionery from eight to 16 per cent last year. This hit the organised industry as sugar-boiled confectionery is a very price sensitive market, with the pricing dependent on the coinage and consumers who rarely accept price increases.

The company plans to introduce around 10 new products in the confectionery segment in the coming three years, said Mr Reddy.
Apart from that, it is also looking at aggressively growing its 50 paise segment, he said. He was speaking on the sidelines of the ‘Naturo’ fruit bars launch in Chennai. Made from natural fruit bars, the range currently has three variants - Mango, Pineapple and Orange Papaya - priced at Rs 4 per bar.

Nutrine has invested Rs 8 crore to set-up an exclusive manufacturing unit for fruit bars at Hoskote near Bangalore, with a capacity of 100 tonnes per month. This segment alone is expected to contribute Rs 50 crore to the company’s turnover coming two years from the domestic and export markets like Europe, America and South-East Asia. At present, there is only one small player in the category - Hyderabad-based Concept Foods, and the total market is less than Rs 10 crore.