Havmor mulls overseas expansion

Works on diet ice creams.

Ahmedabad-based Havmor Ice cream Limited is considering overseas expansion for its chain of restaurants and ice cream parlours.

The largest ice cream manufacturers in Western India are looking at enquiries for setting up franchises in US and Dubai.

"We might give Dubai a shot but have our hands full at the moment with India. Earlier, we had explored Singapore for overseas expansion but did not take it up for the same reason," said Ankit Chona, CEO of Havmor group of companies while his father Pradeep Chona, director, Havmor Ice Cream Limited, adds, "In fact we have been receiving calls from the US where people are keen to start franchises across the country. We are giving the plans a thought but nothing is concrete as of now."

 

The company which has come up with novel ice creams, including the non-alcoholic whisky-flavoured ice cream for premium clientele for parties or weddings last year, is also experimenting on diet ice creams.

"We already have sugar-free ice creams which are doing well in the market. In fact, my father had tried to market ice creams with less than two but did not go down well with the masses. However, now that people are becoming so health conscious, this may be the right time to launch such an ice cream and we are experimenting with the same," Pradeep Chona said.

The ice cream that began its branded life in 1944 in Karachi, during undivided India by Satish Chona had to start from scratch again in the form of a hand-cart business on a railway station in Ahmedabad, post-partition. Since then, the ice cream business has taken innovative forms and given newer heights to the company, which aims to a turnover of Rs 175 crore this year by manufacturing 1.5 crore litres of ice cream this year.

"The company has been seeing a growth of 25-30 per cent every year. In fact, with the completion of our Naroda plant in January next year, we will be able to add 1 lakh litres of ice cream per day to our current capacity of 60,000 litres of ice cream per day," Pradeep Chona said at an event to announce winners of its Mera Flavour contest. The interactive contest involved people to suggest flavours and send in recipes, of which three top flavours will be included in the menu of Havmor restaurants and ice cream outlets. Havmor's HavFunn outlets were expanded from 15 in 2008-09 to 50 in 2009-10.

"We are planning to take our HavFunn outlets to 100 by 2011. Of these 50 new outlets, 30 will be in Gujarat, a few in Mumbai and Rajasthan. In fact Rajasthan is a growing market for us with a lot of potential, where we enjoy 15 per cent market share in just two years. In Gujarat, Havmor enjoys 35 per cent market share and we may soon lead the ice cream market", Ankit Chona added.

"Innovation is a way of life at Havmor", the senior Chona says, adding on a lighter note, "We had recently sent 6000 Havmor paan ice creams to Shilpa Shetty."