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Continuing with its strategy of rolling out innovations in line with consumption trends, Mondelez India has decided to launch a lower sugar variant of its flagship brand Cadbury Dairy Milk. Globally, India and UK are the first two markets where the new variant of Cadbury Dairy Milk with 30 per cent less sugar will be launched in the next few days.
The chocolate- and snacks-maker is betting big on rural markets and investing on expanding cold-chain infrastructure through its visi-coolers to strengthen its distribution in these regions.
‘Significant innovation’
Deepak Iyer, President, Mondelez India, said, “We are driven by the broader purpose of empowering consumers to snack right, and this is one of the most significant innovations in the brand’s history in India. This is in line with our strategy to focus on consumer-centricity and offer choices to various consumer cohorts.”
The company said that the lower sugar variant of its chocolate brand does not contain any added artificial sweetener, colours or preservatives. Anil Viswanathan, Director-Marketing (Chocolates), Mondelez India, said that Cadbury Dairy Milk’s 30 per cent less sugar variant will be sold along with the existing portfolio of the brand.
“The fact that we chose to introduce this innovation under our lead brand indicates this is not just a small experiment. We believe this could be category defining as a lot of effort has been made to ensure the taste of the product was not compromised,” he added.
India is one of the fastest growing markets for Mondelez globally and it has been focusing on growing the penetration, accessibility and affordability of its products especially in the rural markets.
“Last year (January-December period) we grew in double digits. Even in the first quarter, we grew in double digits,” Iyer said, adding that the contribution of rural sales has now grown to about 20 per cent from about10-12 per cent in the past.
Rural growth
Iyer said that the company is positive about rural growth and bullish on the long-term growth prospects of the country.
“We have also now started investing in visi-coolers for the rural region to grow accessibility of our product portfolio. It is not just about putting visi-coolers in villages. It is about making investments in creating a back-end infrastructure to ensure these visi-coolers are functional,” he said.
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