The Hindu Business Line : Seabuckthorn Indage forays into mineral water segment

New Delhi June 5 With the domestic and global water market creating waves, the latest entry into the mineral water segment is Mountain Spring, under Seabuckthorn Indage Ltd's (SIL) flagship brand, Leh Berry.

"We recently forayed into the spring water segment since we think this segment holds immense opportunity in the country with a lot of untapped potential," said Mr M.S. Dhanota, President and Chief Operating Officer, Seabuckthorn Indage Ltd.

Mountain Spring, priced at Rs 10 for a 200 ml bottle and Rs 25 for a one-litre bottle, is being targeted at the premium section of the society.

The product has already on the shelves in the Northern and Western markets.

The company will be packaging the water at a plant in Himachal Pradesh, under a subsidiary Leh Berry Minerals.

Though the plant has a capacity of one lakh litres per day, only 65 per cent of capability is being used currently. "We plan to spruce up our production and use the entire capacity of the plant as and when required," said Mr Dhanota.

The plant will also be used for packaging of sparkling and flavoured water eventually.

Phased roll-out

SIL plans to roll out the product in a phased manner. While the product was launched in May, it will be available across India by end of December.

"The total packaged water market in India is around Rs 1,000 crore, of which Rs 95-Rs 100 crore is captured by mineral water. Our target is to be 5 per cent of the mineral water market by the end of this year," said Mr Dhanota.

The company also plans to leverage its distribution base in the country to roll out its new product.

"We plan to make the product available across all key outlets, major institutions, airlines and hotels," said Mr Dhanota.

"Besides that, we will tap the conventional route of our 34 consignment agents and 600 distributors in the first year.

"Our target is to be present through 25,000 premium outlets pan India by the end of this fiscal," he added.