After facing a steep decline in ice-cream revenues, ice cream major Vadilal Industries Limited has set an ambitious goal of crossing ₹800 crore in revenues from ice cream sales during the current year.

“The year 2020 was a disturbed one for all ice cream players. But now we see consumption picking up as people have started to live with Covid by taking adequate safety precautions. The summer of 2021 will be much better than 2020 as people are back to consumption,” said Akanksha Gandhi, Brand director for Vadilal Ice cream.

The Covid-19-induced lockdown had hampered the sales for the ice cream industry with entire peak season of summer drawing nearly a blank for most of the players.

“Our sales revenues from ice cream segment was about ₹650 crore in 2019-20. We are hoping to cross ₹800 crore for ice creams this year,” said Gandhi in a media interaction for launch of new ice cream marketing campaign ‘Vah Vadilal’.

Vadilal Industries Limited sells ice cream and frozen food products under Vadilal brand.

“Last year the marketing campaigns were affected by Covid-19 situation. And there were constraints on marketing budgets. Normally we spend about six per cent of our overall sales revenues for marketing campaigns. But this year we have earmarked eight per cent of our total sales revenues for marketing budget,” said Gandhi stating that the focus for marketing will be more on digital space amidst Covid-led disruptions.

The company has roped in Lowe Lintas for brand promotions and marketing strategy. Sagar Kapoor, Chief Creative Officer at Lowe Lintas said, “For Vadilal ice cream’s new branding promotion tries to tap changing taste of consumers with focus on young consumers, who want to experiment and try new tastes. Vadilal’s portfolio of 200 flavours is a big advantage.”

Vadilal has launched 12 new products for the current summer.

Meanwhile, despite the volatility in raw material prices i.e. Skimmed Milk Powder (SMP), Vadilal’s Marketing Head, Niraj Presswala informed that there will be no price revision in ice creams. “We are maintaining the price range as it is,” he added.

On exports, company has witnessed ‘extremely well’ performance with exports at ₹250 crore for the year 2020-21. “The overseas sales have grown by 15 per cent during 2020-21. This includes ice creams, frozen and processed foods. This year we expect exports to cross ₹350 crore,” said Gandhi.

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