Eyes market share of 30-35% in high-end biscuit category
Rituparna Chatterjee – Mumbai
India-based biscuit and confectionary manufacturing company, Parle Products has forayed into the health biscuit category with the ‘Simply Good’ range of cookies, available in three varieties – Classic Digestive, Honey and Oats and Apple and Cinnamon. The range, which is presently being rolled out across the entire distribution network of the company, will be available for both retail and institutional sales. The latest offering targets the health conscious urban India. There are also plans to expand this range next year with new flavours. This is part of the company’s strategy to strengthen its market position in the Indian biscuit industry (pegged at Rs 24,000 crore) by entering the health biscuit segment which is presently dominated by its competitor Britannia with 55-60 per cent market share followed by ITC (six-seven per cent), Horlicks (three per cent) and others. In the biscuit industry, the company presently has a market share of 32 per cent (in terms of value) and 38 per cent (in terms of volume).
Elaborating more on this expansion, Mayank Shah, deputy marketing manager, Parle Products, stated, “Unless a particular product segment is lucrative for a national player like us, we will not enter this market. However, we entered this market since the health biscuit segment has reached an inflection point and will soon be touching Rs 500 crore (two-three per cent of the biscuit industry). This will grow further in the future with more people becoming health-conscious and that is the reason why large companies are entering this segment.” He added that, “We are looking at 15-20 per cent growth in the first year mainly through modern trade as this is an evolved category. The present contribution of modern trade is eight-10 per cent of the total biscuit sales. Presently, the health biscuit category is growing at a rate of 20-25 per cent year-on-year.”
The company, which has a market share of 25 per cent in the high-end biscuit category has plans to increase it to 30-35 per cent and will be focusing on consolidating all its brands under this category before further expanding. The high-end biscuit category is presently pegged at Rs 6000-7000 crore (25 per cent market share in terms of value and 15 per cent in terms of volume) of the total biscuit industry.