Tea Board urges branding as export strategy

Board in talks with Indian tea industry for branding initiatives; to seek help of IBEF

To increase export, the Tea Board of India has proposed encouraging producers to come up with specific brands aimed at foreign markets.

“We have failed in branding Indian tea in export markets because we are bulk exporters. We don’t export good packaged tea in value-added form. Tea is consumed all over the world in blended form. There is no English morning tea without Assam tea in it. But we have not marketed it as Indian tea in international markets,” said Tea Board Chairman M G V K Bhanu.

In a presentation at the 120th annual conference of United Planters’ Association of South India in Coonoor earlier this week, he said India couldn’t succeed in branding tea for specific markets within the country, as well as abroad. However, he expressed confidence the country could capture a higher share in the export markets by exporting branded tea in the coming years.

The Tea Board is targeting export of 230 million kg this financial year, a 4.5 per cent rise on previous year. In 2012-13, exports were 220.46 million kg. India’s output rose 3.6 per cent to 1.13 billion kg in 2012-13 from 1.09 billion kg the previous year.

“We cannot export all sorts of tea. We will encourage exporters to focus more on export of high-quality, high value-added teas. While continuing our efforts, we have identified five focus markets for exports---Kazakhstan, Iran, US, Egypt and Russia. We will take up many new initiatives such as branding of Indian tea for these markets. We will extend all assistance to exporters to achieve the desired targets,” Bhanu said. “We have achieved tremendous success in these five focus markets. However, we have not succeeded in creating an Indian international brand.”

Bhanu said the board was stressing on increasing exports to Iran to 25 million kg this year from 17 million kg last year, growth of 45 per cent. It was also trying to increase exports of orthodox tea.

The Tea Board had entered into a dialogue with various stakeholders of the industry for the branding initiative, he added. The board would take the help of India Brand Equity Foundation (IBEF) to create a brand for foreign markets, he said. IBEF is a trust established by the department of commerce that aims to promote and create global awareness of the ‘made in India’ label in markets abroad and facilitate dissemination of knowledge of Indian products and services.

To recommend a strategy to increase consumption of tea in rural areas The board has constituted a committee headed by Hindustan Unilever. The panel includes other leading producers such as Tata Global Beverages and Girnar.

“In rural India, people think drinking tea is not good for health. They prefer a glass of milk over tea. We need to change their perception and establish the fact that tea drinking is not bad for the health. We need to produce good quality tea and supply it to markets all over,” Bhanu said.