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The fight for supremacy in the super premium segment of biscuits is intensifying with big ticket investments riding on it.
After Parle and ITC, it is now Britannia Industries which is taking the plunge to build the super premium biscuit category with plans to invest almost Rs 100 crore. It has decided to exclusively manufacture it super premium offerings like Heavens and Chunkies at its plant in Gwalior in Madhya Pradesh.
Heavens and Chunkies are the super premium variants of Nutrichoice and Good Day, respectively.
Ali Harris Shere, Director-Marketing, Britannia Industries said, ``We will invest whatever it takes to build the super premium category which is almost non existent today. Our new super premium variants are at a 30-40 percent premium to the existing ranges under NutriChoice and Good Day.’’
Given that biscuits contribute 80 per cent of its sales turnover of Rs 7,000 crore, Britannia is enhancing innovations at the super premium segment to improve its market share, apart from deriving better margins, where it faces competition from players like ITC, Mondelez and Parle.
``We have imported machinery from Italy to manufacture our super premium biscuits to make them on par with the international brands. There will be big investments behind innovation, sampling and marketing,’’ added Shere.
Besides it has also tied up with sites like Amazon to make sure its Heavens brand reaches out to the right target audience initially before selling its across a host of grocery sites.
In the Rs 30,000 crore biscuits category, it is segments like cookies and crackers which are the fastest growing unlike the glucose segment which is de-growing and has almost become stagnant.
``We want to go beyond the glucose category which has been de-growing and almost become stagnant. Today the price points between glucose and cookies is almost similar and consumers prefer to avail of more indulgent formats like cookies and crème,’’ added Shere.
In fact Parle, the market leader in glucose, has already been trying to build the super premium category with its Milano brand.
``There is a cost to developing the super premium category as the volumes do not offset the cost. We were the first ones to try and build the category with Milano and have been extending its variants,’’ said Shalin Desai, Deputy Marketing Manager, Parle Products.
Milano had Hrithik Roshan initially endosing it in its campaigns which had an international look and feel to it. Meanwhile, Britannia has roped in actress Deepika Padukone for its latest super premium offering under Good day Chunkies.
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