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Purvita Chatterjee

Frito Lay lines up range of snacks

Mumbai May 29 Increasing competition among crossover snack brands has led PepsiCo India's Frito Lay Division to stretch the equity of Kurkure. Having created the `bridge category' between namkeens and potato chips through this brand, the entry of new players, including ITC's Bingo brand, into the category is leading Frito Lay to innovate its offerings under its homegrown brand.

Ms Sucheta Govil, Marketing Manager, PepsiCo India Holdings (Frito-Lay Division), told Business Line, "Today we are looking at new ways to stretch the trade mark of the Kurkure brand into different formats and categories. With a robust product development team, the new Kurkure products are at the R&D stage."

With intentions of segmenting the offerings under the bridge category, Frito Lay has lined up a range of snacks in different formats suited for different needs of consumers.

As Ms Govil adds, "Today there is full innovation on Kurkure's equity."

For instance, in the recent past, Kurkure has introduced a new variant, Solid Masti, a denser offering in its portfolio compared to its existing lightweight format for its existing variants.

"Kurkure continues to be the dominant brand in its category and since we created the bridge category way back in 1994, today we have belief in re-creating it with new technology for the products," states Ms Govil.

Till date, the `bridge category' barely had any national players except Haldiram's brand, but lately the entry of ITC's Bingo brand into the same segment has made it a more competitive category to be in.

Meanwhile, Frito Lays' creative and media-buying agencies, JWT and Mindshare in Delhi, have been drawn in to create a contest — `Kurkure Chai Time Achievers' that would make `real people' famous.

The contest would involve creating recipes based on the brand and the winners would be featured on at least one million Kurkure packs.

More Stories on : Strategy | Retailing | Foods & Food Processing | I T C Ltd

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PepsiCo working on Kurkure variants

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