Vadilal takes 'Badabite' of ice cream market

Mega brand launches & advertising blitzkrieg

EDITOR’S SYNOPSIS:

• Vadilal’s new brands – Badabite, Flingo and Gourmet – to target the premium segment of the Indian ice cream market
• High-tech extrusion machine and India’s fastest cone machine in place to supply international quality ice creams at national prices
• To spend Rs. 6 crore on all forms of advertising over next 45 days, peak of ice cream season

With the latest extrusion-based technology, Vadilal has launched the ‘Badabite’ brand in the high-end candies segment, a premium product range with innovation.

Vadilal Industries Ltd. has undertaken an aggressive campaign on all fronts to increase its over-all market share as well as capture a larger pie of the premium ice cream market. New mega brands, installation of latest state-of-the-art machines, aggressive advertising and significant expansion in production facilities will combine to make Vadilal an even stronger force to reckon with in the domestic ice cream market. Vadilal is already the second largest ice cream maker in the country.  

Elaborating on their new brands, Devanshu Gandhi, MD of Vadilal Industries Ltd, said, “With the latest extrusion technology, the Badabite candies will have less over-run (air insertion), better texture, creamier and coating of pure chocolate enriched with cocoa butter. Vadilal ‘Gourmet’ is the other new brand being introduced with a high-end packaging called ‘in mould labelling’ technology. In the ‘Gourmet’ category we are offering 2 flavours and 3 more will follow soon. In the cone segment, we are launching a new higher-end product called ‘Flingo’, which has different types of insertions in the centre such as chocolate fudge, raspberry ripple and strawberry ripple.”

He further added, “Our aim is to launch international quality products at pocket-friendly prices. Badabite and Flingo have a very youth oriented brand personality whereas Gourmet is targeted more towards the young family segment. We are also very aggressively targeting the youth with a number of new TV commercials. Our focus will be on increasing sales to the impulse category. Over the next 45 days Vadilal is going to spend around Rs. 6 crore on all modes of advertising – TV, print, radio and outdoors.”

Vadilal has just set up India’s fastest cone-making machine. As against the current machines which make 6000 cones per hour, Vadilal has put in place a machine which will make 18,000 cones per hour. It is the first and the only ice cream producer in India to have such a machine.

Looking at the huge potential in the Indian ice cream market, Rajesh Gandhi, MD of Vadilal Industries Ltd, said, “While the Chinese ice cream market is worth around Rs 20,000 crore, the total Indian market size is just Rs 2500 crore, with the organised sector market estimated at Rs 1500 crore. As against an average industry growth of around 15%, we are working hard to achieve a sales growth of 40% in 2011-12. Vadilal plans to increase its share in the organised ice cream market to around 24% from the current 20%.”

Vadilal Industries has two ice cream production facilities – one at Pundhra in Gandhinagar district, Gujarat and the other one at Bareilly in Uttar Pradesh. The company’s total production capacity which was 2,25,000 litres per day earlier has been increased to 3,25,000 litres per day from April 2011 onwards.