National
Srikkanth
to endorse Aurofood's VitaMilk Biscuit
Former Indian cricket captain and commentator K Srikkant
has been signed as a brand ambassador for 'Vitamilk' - Aurofood's new
premium milk biscuit brand. With almost 30,000 tonnes of biscuits sold
in India (70 per cent being sold in Tamil Nadu alone), the 100-crore
manufacturer of True (brand of biscuits and vermicelli) and Jokes wafers
is confident of acquiring a 10 per cent market share with this recent
offering. Available in 150 gm and 75 gm packs and priced at Rs 10 and
Rs 5 respectively, the press release further states that a family pack
of VitaMilk and VitaMilk Cream are other few extensions the company
plans to introduce soon.
HLL to cease breadmanufacturing activities
Hindustan Lever Ltd (HLL)
has decided to close down its unviable bread making units and go the
franchisee way to strengthen the market standing of its brand 'Modern'
bread. Modern Foods India Ltd (MFIL) was acquired by HLL two years ago
and has 11 of its own bread-manufacturing units. Of these three units
located in Silchar, Bhagalpur and Ujjain, were already closed before
HLL acquisition Furthermore, the company's other bread making units
in Delhi, Faridabad and Kanpur are also believed to be unviable for
operations, leaving just the Chennai, Bangalore, Kochi and Kolkata units
'operationally viable.' In these settings, HLL is looking to its intensify
marketing efforts nationally through franchisees, while cashing in on
the high recall that the Modern brand still enjoys among consumers.
However, the company believes that to make manufacturing practical,
its main activity would be to bring down the conversion cost in line
with industry average, through restructuring and reduction of workforce
numbers.
Darjeeling tea belt to become an AEZ
The area covering 87 tea gardens of Darjeeling has
finally been converted into an Agricultural Export Zone (AEZ). This
was recommended by the Darjeeling Planters Association (DPA), but the
formal announcement was made at the 16th Annual General Meeting of the
association, by Dr Sabyasachi Sen, Commerce and Industry Secretary,
Government of West Bengal With this development, the Darjeeling tea
gardens are expected to get better facilities in respect of support
and infrastructure development from the government. Once transformed
into an AEZ, Darjeeling tea sector would directly come under the ambit
of APEDA (Agriculture and Processed Food Products Export Development
Authority). The Indian Tea Association (ITA) along with the Tea Board
has already suggested an Rs 1,000 crore corpus for this activity. According
to Mr NK Das, Chairman of Tea Board, SBI Caps has been appointed to
do a study on the nittygritties of the proposed corpus. He further elaborated
on Darjeeling being recognised as a GI (Geographical Indication). The
DPA members were updated on the same.
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