Financial Daily from THE HINDU group of publications
Friday, May 09, 2003
Financial Daily from THE HINDU group of publications Friday, May 09, 2003 |
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Marketing
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New Products & Services Now calorie watchers can make merry with Sugar Free D'lite Ratna Bhushan
NEW DELHI, May 8 GOT an appetite for soft drinks but still want to watch your weight? Here is an alternative. The Rs 1,000-crore, Ahmedabad-based Zydus Cadila group has extended its Rs 24-crore Sugar Free brand to a low-calorie soft drink by the name of Sugar Free D'lite. "With Sugar Free D'lite, we have created a niche market - that of neutraceutical soft drinks, in line with international trends. The idea has been to extend the core proposition of the Sugar Free brand beyond tea and coffee usage to a new category - soft drinks," Mr Ganesh Nayak, Executive Director, Zydus Cadila, told Business Line. The Sugar Free brand is marketed by Zydus Cadila's consumer products division. The brand is available in the popular pellet format, as well as in the powder form, packaged both in sachets and jars. The company says that Sugar Free D'lite has 85 per cent lower calories than any other soft drink available in the domestic market. According to industry data, packaged sugar-based aerated soft drinks contain 80+ calories per glass of 180 ml, while sugar-based soft drink mixes contain calories in excess of 73 per glass of 180 ml. Available in a pack of 10 single serve sachets priced at Rs 4.50 a sachet (or Rs 45 a pack), Sugar Free is now available in three flavours - tangy orange, peppy lemon and passion fruit. Conventionally, Sugar Free falls in the category of powdered soft drinks, concentrates and syrups market, which AC Nielsen/ ORG estimates at Rs 250 crore. According to Mr Nayak, Zydus Cadila has projected a 5 per cent share of this market for Sugar Free D'lite initially. Rasna has a dominant 87 per cent share of this market. Coca-Cola India's Sunfill, Dr Morepen's C-Sip and Hindustan Lever's Fruit Kick, available in powder and syrup form, are the other brands in this category. Attaching health connotations to conventional food product categories is catching up as an industry trend. Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation (GCMMF) has recently introduced `isabgol-enriched' ice cream in Gujarat and pockets of Maharashtra. The `health-cum-fun' ice-cream brand complements Amul's Slimscoop range of fat-free ice creams. Fruit juice brands Real from Dabur, and Tropicana from Pepsi also market sugar-free variants. Meanwhile, diet alternatives to conventional aerated soft drink brands such as Diet Coke and Diet Pepsi have not really caught the fancy of the Indian consumer.
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