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K. Giriprakash

Bangalore , Oct. 26

The UB Group has said that it is more interested in sourcing Scotch whisky than in acquiring the brands.

"We are clearly looking at business 5-10 years from now," the UB Group's President and Chief Financial Officer, Mr Ravi Nedungadi, told Business Line.

He said with the consumers in the US increasingly preferring Scotch over other liquor and China too consuming more Scotch, there was a huge opportunity for the group to source the brew and market it abroad. "We want to secure the supply of Scotch," he said. Once there is a constant supply, it can be blended here, he said.

Explaining the strategy, Mr Nedungadi pointed out that no new distilleries are being set up in Scotland because of environmental issues there. Hence, the group will try to look at sourcing fillings (immature whisky) from distilleries in Scotland as they don't have much value and maturisation will be carried out in India. This will enable purchasing young Scotch at attractive prices, and mature them in-house up to various age profiles.

"We can do the maturisation at cheaper rates here," he said. Hence, it is necessary to create large storage facility so that fillings can be bought in bulk.

The group has already announced its plans to set up a marketing office in China which will help the company monitor the market conditions and also fine-tune to sell its whisky brands there.

On the sourcing of wine, Mr Nedungadi said the acquisition of Bouvet Ladubay would enable the group to import both BIO (bottled in origin) and bulk wine into India. "We will be able to offer a variety of wines and we plan to introduce them in Class A cities in the country," he said.

More Stories on : Brands | Outsourcing | Breweries

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