Juicy strategy

Armed with new positioning and Rs 15 crore, Amoretto's plans 180 kiosks and cafes

Karela (bittegourd) juice anyone? At Amoretto's they have touching faith that you would actually shell out money for the drink!

In fact, the one-year-old company that had earlier positioned itself as the country's first chain of juice bars is now sharpening its focus.

Sure, it will still serve fresh juice and smoothies with real fruit "" but it hopes to sell its new positioning too: as a retailer of health drinks like WheatGrass, Spirulina, Soy Protein and karela juice.

In keeping with the new positioning, the strategy seems to be to align the juice bars with existing gyms and fitness centres.

The company has recently opened an outlet at Moksh, the upmarket gym at Breach Candy, Mumbai; and another one in Kolkata where it is present at the Forum Mall "" next to a gym.

Next week, another outlet will come up in Mumbai at Gold's Gym, the first international chain of gyms to make an appearance in India. (If you are into Hollywood trivia, the gym was made famous by the likes of Arnold Schwarznegger, who trained here.)

Though there's little data available on the size of the "health" market, the Indian fast food organized retail industry itself is estimated to be Rs 500 crore, growing at 40 per cent per year.

A KSA Technopak study indicates that the fast food industry in India will be worth $1.27 billion by 2005.

And by that year, Amoretto's managing director Jayant Kochar says that the company will grow beyond just a juice bar chain into a larger "energy and fitness" brand offering packaged energy foods and beverages, fitness apparel and even fitness centres.

If Kochar's plans take off, it could make Amoretto's virtually the country's first such chain selling energy and fitness drinks. Currently, the market for energy and fitness foods is largely unorganised.

Interestingly though, smaller, local players such as former Escort's nutritionist Ishi Khosla's Whole Foods products in Delhi and "Miss India nutritionist" Anjali Mukherjee's products in Mumbai doing fairly well.

Of course there is Dabur (with its Real Active brand) among several other products from various pharma cos, but Amoretto claims its positioning is different.

"I believe as people in India are becoming more self assured they are going to stop chasing symbols and seek self actualisation. The focus is going to be on what is good for you rather than going to the bar to drink yourself silly," says Kochar.

He may be right, but would people really queue up for health drinks? Kochar likes to believe there is a potential health freak in all of us "" even though "freak" is not how he'd like describe it.

Since Kochar was associated with the coffee chain Barista in the past, will Amoretto's follow the same business model? Not really.

The company has a Rs 15-crore investment lined up for product development and expansion. It plans to add as many as 180 outlets in the next five years taking the franchisee route.

However, Kochar says that what he plans are kiosks, smaller outlets, more than the larger existing cafes.

"In every city we would have both cafes and kiosks but the ratio would be 20:80. For every 4 to 6 kiosks we plan one cafe," Kochar specifies.