Wine that is actually cheaper than beer! Sounds incredible, doesn't it? It will be a reality soon if Champagne Indage has its way. |
Enthused by the huge success of its recently launched Vino brand of wine, the company is planning to launch a new brand at half the rate of Vino, which is sold at Rs 99 per 750 ml bottle. In just two months since its launch, the company has sold 36,000 cases of Vino. |
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Arun Shah, group president and director, Champagne Indage, said it would bring down the cost by a combination of factors - reduction in the maturity time of wine, scaling up production capacity, and introducing other cost-effective measures such as using tetra packs. The objective is to make it affordable for the average Indian consumers. |
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"You may call it no-frills wine where it will get the basic wine excluding the extravaganza such as attractive bottling etc. We have introduced Vino in PET bottle. We will introduce 750 ml wine for Rs 49 in tetra packs in two years," he said. |
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Shah said the company would not compromise on the quality of the product to bring down the price. It has a large foreign clientele and exports wine to France, the US, the UK, Germany and Singapore. With the advancement in R&D in the wine industry, the maturity time can be reduced to four to six months, almost one-twelveth of the current period. It helps reduce the cost substantially. |
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For scaling up the capacity from 3.5 million lt to 15 million lt in three years, the company has identified land in Himachal Pradesh, and is in the process of finalising arrangements with bottling agents in Madhya Pradesh, West Bengal and Tamil Nadu. |
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The enhancement of capacity requires an investment of Rs 30 crore. Since no-frill wine requires easy availability for average consumers, the company is expanding its outlets by two and a half times to 23,000. The company has a portfolio of over 50 brands. |
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Recently, it has placed a 15.96 per cent stake through preferential shares to a handful of investors including Arisaig India Fund to raise capital. |
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