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Cadbury may cart global brands to sweeten sales

Reeba Zachariah

Chocolate major Cadbury India is looking at launching some of its global confectionery brands to sweeten its Indian sales numbers.

Bharat Puri, director, sales and marketing, Cadbury India, said: "The option of importing global confectionery brands is open to us and we are evaluating various possibilities." However, he refused to divulge further.

Explaining the rationale behind the move, senior company officials said, "Wherever we find a need and if it makes economic sense to our customers, we will be importing some of the brands."

Cadbury India, a subsidiary of Cadbury Schweppes, currently has brands such as Dairy Milk, Five Star, Perk, Milk Treat, Eclairs and Gollum in its local portfolio.

The global collection includes confectionery products such as Flake, TimeOut, Wispa, Caramel, Fuse and Cherry Ripe.

In sugar confectionery, its brands are Bassett's, Maynards, Pascall and Trebor. The products range from wine gums, fruit pastilles and liquorice allsorts to sugar-free mints and bubble gum. Other confectionery brands include Maynard Wine Gums, Bassett's Liquorice Allsorts, Trebor Extra Strong Mints, Trebor Mighty Mints (sugar-free mints) and Trebor Softmints.

In France, Cadbury Schweppes is the market leader in chewing gum. Per capita consumption in France is second only to the US.

In Argentina, the global major's brands include Beldent and Bazooka. It recently entered the Chinese gum market through the acquisition of Wuxi Leaf and Sportlife brands.

Cadbury India continues to dominate the domestic chocolate market with about 70 per cent market share. However, Nestle, with about 20 per cent market share, has emerged as a competitor.

Cadbury India said in a recent presentation to analysts that its strategy is to increase the share of chocolate purchases in the total impulse purchase category, which is currently at 6.1 per cent. To achieve this, it plans to drive volumes by focussing on areas such as impulse snacking, child connectivity, gifting and new channels.

In sugar confectionery, while the market is growing at 15 per cent, the presence of an unorganised sector makes it a difficult market to crack for the company. It has a market share of about 4 per cent.

The domestic organised sugar confectionery market is five times bigger than the premium chocolates segment.

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