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Famous for its signature ice cream flavours such as nalen gur (date palm jaggery), paan (betel leaf) and gandharaj (scented lemon), Kolkata-based Pabrai’s Fresh and Naturelle plans to strengthen its national presence this year.
Apart from launches in Mumbai, Bhubaneshwar and Mysore, the company plans to set up 30 new stores through the franchisee model by the end of this fiscal. The company operates on a franchise model only and is looking to set up its standalone outlet in Kolkata soon.
Pabrai’s is one of the smaller players operating only in the premium segment. A 100-ml ice-cream is priced between Rs 70 and Rs 90 compared with the Rs 15-Rs 20 price bracket for a normal brand. The ice-cream market in India is pegged at 160 million litres annually.
Fresh and Naturelle has 18 outlets spread across Kolkata, Delhi, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Chennai, Surat, Jaipur and Siliguri. This apart, it has tied up with Spencer’s and top hotels and restaurants such as Taj, Park, ITC, Mainland China, Oh! Calcutta, among others.
“We either send the ice-cream by rail or through air. But we prefer to have one centralised production unit. This helps us maintain quality,” Kunal Pabrai, Partner, Pabrai’s Fresh & Naturelle, said.
According to Kunal, the company will invest around Rs 3 crore in scaling up production to 12,000 litres, almost six times the present capacity by early next fiscal.
Although Fresh & Naturelle, a unit of K N & Co, was set up by brothers - Kunal and Nishant, the Pabrai family has had a previous experience in ice-cream manufacturing. Anuvrat Pabrai, their father, had set up one of India’s oldest ice-cream brands Tulika’s. Set up in the early 80s, it was a dominant player in the eastern region. In 2008, operations were closed down following labour problems at its factory in south-west Kolkata.
“The Tulika’s factory still has Italian technology. We plan to refurbish the factory. Initially, we will start with a capacity of 10,000 litres a day. Later, we might scale it to 20,000 litres,” he said.
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