The Hindu Business Line : Stovekraft launches range of aluminium pressure cookers

STAINLESS steel may rule the kitchen. It may be stainless steel for gas stoves and utensils. But when it comes to pressure cookers it is aluminium that the market wants.

A leading manufacturer of stainless steel pressure cookers, the Vardhaman group, has started making aluminium cookers through its division, Stovekraft Pvt Ltd - because the Indian housewives have told it so.

Stovekraft's managing director, Mr Rajendra J. Gandhi, has this to say: Over 2 lakh pressure cookers are sold every month. Of this only 20,000 are made of stainless steel and the rest are of aluminium.

Aluminium may be ideal for heating. But the answer for its dominance in the cooker market is in commerce, not physics.

Nearly 85 per cent of the cost of a pressure cooker is that of the raw material - aluminium. A housewife who bought a pressure cooker about 10 years back can just trade it in at a vessel shop and recover most of the cost to buy a new cooker or a stainless steel utensil.

This rule does not apply to other aluminium utensils, which are low priced; a cooker is considered an investment, he says.

So Stovekraft, a leading producer of stainless steel kitchen products, made an exception in the case of cookers. It launched a range of aluminium pressure cookers in the market here on Sunday.

Addressing the launch of the Pigeon brand aluminium pressure cookers, Mr Gandhi said that Stovekraft hopes to add another Rs 20 crore to its turnover from the sales of its new product. Stovekraft is a division of the Bangalore-based Vardhaman group, which has a turnover of about Rs 40 crore.

Stovekraft's success, according to Mr Gandhi, is its high quality and low price. For instance, the starting price of a Pigeon aluminium pressure cooker is Rs 395, nearly half that of a rival's equivalent.

The Vardhaman group, which manufactures and markets kerosene stoves, gas stoves and mixer-grinders, has adopted this competitive pricing for all its products. The same will apply to the wet grinder and the feather-touch, multispark lighters that it plans to introduce soon, he said.

Whether it is a stainless steel gas stove, kerosene stove, pressure cooker or mixer-grinder, Pigeon products have broken the market perception of minimum price. This is characteristic of the Pigeon brand. "The prices surprise the customer and shock the competitors," according to Mr Gandhi.

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Stovekraft launches range of aluminium pressure cookers