Archana Sharma – New Delhi
With a view to boost olive imports in the India market, EXTENDA, the trade promotion agency of Andalusia, Spain, recently launched its first marketing campaign in Gurgaon, ‘ONLY OLIVES FROM SPAIN: MAKE FOOD YUMMY EVERYDAY!’. EXTENDA, was seen at the event representing several Spanish producers, processors and distributors of table olives. Elaborating on the marketing campaign, Christian Gross, director, agri-food and edible products department, EXTENDA, stated, “This is the first year that we have undertaken a campaign of this scale in India. We are one of the largest producers of olives in the world and since India is becoming a major market for everyone, we want to push our product to every household.” This campaign will be promoted pan India, across 10 supermarkets in eight cities during November and December.
India still remains a small market in terms of value, importing about 1.5 million euros of olives, but Spanish olives already account for over 80 per cent of the olive imports in India. Therefore India is one of major markets apart from the US, Russia, France, UK and Poland, where they have already been conducting such campaigns for almost a decade. “All the stores will have almost 90 per cent of olives from Spain and we have trained the staff to explain the product further to the customers, as we believe that even though new products are hard to sell here, our product will sit well with the tastes and preferences of the Indian consumer, especially due to the nutritional value attached to olives,” stated, Carolina Gimeno, head, FMCG and services division, InQuve.
The ambassador for the event, Chef Sabyasachi Gorai, hosted a live cooking show at the event during the inaugural ceremony, showcasing effective and efficient ways to create recipes with olives and informing the guests about the different varieties.