Vanilco to expand product base

Vanilla India Producer Co (Vanilco), a company formed by vanilla growers of Kerala, will add two more items to its product portfolio this Christmas""Vanilla perfume and coffee""which will be introduced in domestic market in line with demand, said Paul Jose, managing director, Vanilco.

The company had already initiated plans to create awareness about natural vanilla, which includes co-operative behemoth Amul distributing vanilla samples along with its milk cream, an agreement for which has already been signed with Amul.

Under the terms of the pact, Amul will distribute 1 lakh free sample packets of vanilla of 10 ml each, along with Amul milk cream. Paul Jose added that vanilla perfume would be a pioneering effort and the company had got very good response in test marketing. A 30 ml spray bottle will be sold for Rs 100.

Vanilla coffee will be sold at a price tag of Rs 45-50 for 100 gm and can be used with hot water. He also said that as part of vanilla awareness programme, company had charted out plans to introduce two vanilla based products every month.

Vanilco already has five products in its portfolio "" vanilla tea, vanilla sugar, vanilla powder, crystal vanilla and vanilla extract "" which are hot cakes in both domestic and overseas markets. There is strong demand for crystal vanilla, which is 30 gm gift pack and for extract which is available from 10 ml to 10 litre packs from overseas markets.

India imports 650 tonne synthetic vanilla on an annualised basis, and if a small portion of this can be converted into natural vanilla there would be a large domestic market.

Jose said that domestic market is growing now as more companies are ready to take natural vanilla products. Vanilco had already approached ITC and Hindustan Lever for marketing its products and preliminary discussions are on with ITC.

As the vanilla harvesting season is drawing to a close, total production in Kerala will be around 250 tonne of green beans.

Vanilco, which is the only agency to procure vanilla now, had already bought 150 tonne and expected to procure 50 tonne more by the end of December.

Demand in overseas markets especially in US is on increase now and the price of cured beans has been stabilised at $ 30-40 a kg in global market. But Vanilco which is yet to break the ice, is mainly focusing on developing a better domestic market, he added.