The Hindu Business Line : Assam Co to launch 4 tea brands, tap CIS markets

“We are re-entering the packet tea business with Jumbo and Cheetah (regular) as well as Assam Gold and First Gold (premium),” according to Mr Abhay Chowdhry, Director (Finance) and CFO of the company. “We expect to introduce tea bags to tap the growing CIS markets.”

The company, it is pointed out, intends to make inroads into railway and airline consumer base for tea through branded varieties.

It is hoped that the re-entry into the packet tea segment will enable the company to offer a larger proportion of sales from bulk to branded with a corresponding increase in realisations.

“In the tea business, we recognise that we have the advantage of volumes but we will be able to leverage the true potential locked in our business only if we enhance value in every conceivable way,” Mr Chowdhry observes in the company’s annual report for 2006.

The company has eight retail outlets of tea bars named Camelia and proposes to diversify into aromatic and medicinal varieties of herbal plants to be used as flavouring agent in tea and other culinary preparations.

A move is afoot also to enter into tea tourism by promoting Salonah and Greenwood tea estates as attractive tourist destinations.

Assam Company runs 19 tea estates covering more than 13,500 hectares in Assam and produces about 16 million kg of tea annually.

The tea business accounts for more than 96 per cent of the company’s revenue (Rs 149.5 crore in December 2006), and more than 68 per cent of net profit (Rs 7.45 crore in December 2006).

Other activities

The company’s non-tea activities cover exploration of oil and gas, not only in India but also outside, and development of a hydrocarbon SEZ in Gujarat. The commercial production of oil and gas commenced in the Amguri block in Assam, and also in one of wells in the US exploration block.

For the first time the oil business generated a revenue of about Rs 5 crore in 2006. For the development of hydrocarbon SEZ entailing an investment of Rs 20,000 crore with the target of completion by January 2010, the company has signed an MoU with Gujarat State petroleum Corporation Ltd.

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