The Hindu : Desai Brothers to focus on ethnic food business

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Dec 12, 2002

Business

Business

Desai Brothers to focus on ethnic food business

By Our Corporate Reporter

CHENNAI DEC. 11. Desai Brothers, a 100 year old company engaged in the manufacture of quality tobacco products, is making a foray into the ethnic food business. The company has already acquired the well-known `Mother's Recipe' brand from American Dry Fruits (ADF) at a cost of Rs. 7 crores.

Addressing presspersons here today, Mayur M. Awasthi, general manager (marketing), said, the ethnic food business in India was estimated to be more than Rs. 4,000 crores and Desai Brothers would focus on pickles segment which had a huge potential.

After launching 13 variants of South Indian style pickles here, Mr. Awasthi said the company would leverage the national presence of the brand `Mother's Recipe' by targeting 300 distributors and 2.50 lakh retail outlets across the country during the initial phase.

The company was planning to spend Rs. 100 crores in the next five years towards creating infrastructure and research facilities and popularising the brand. He said the existing facility in Pune had a capacity of 150 tonnes a month and it would also source the products from the ADF facility in Nashik. Besides tobacco, the Rs. 375 crore Pune-based Desai group headed by Bimal Desai, has diverse business interests in finance, chemicals, transports and real estate.

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