Motherhood and more

Mamta Agro wants a slice of India's fruit juices market, but is subject to larger forces.

Pepsi has decided it's time to take the upper-end Indian soft drinks consumer, one who belongs to one of India's 10 million odd car-owning households, up the market's value curve.

And Mamta Agro Foods, a subsidiary of Mamta Drinks and Industries Ltd, is among the smaller local players that could benefit from any structural change in the market that Pepsi's gameplan may bring about.

Mamta's emphasis is on fruit juices. Under theMadrid brand it has launched a set of flavours the Indian palate is familiar with: aloe vera, safed musali and seabuckthorn, among them.

The last of these saw an earlier attempt in Ladakh Foods' Leh Berry, which didn't quite make a success of itself. But Ajay Kumar, GM, sales and marketing, Mamta Agro, is not daunted by that.

"Leh Berry had only seabuckthorn flavour, and though it was appreciated by consumers, it was the company that had financial problems and had to shut down its operations."

Is Mamta Agro any better placed? Its target turnover for 2006 is Rs 25 crore, making it a midget in an arena of MNC giants. But it is confident of what it has on offer.

However, just in case the exotic flavours don't catch the consumer's fancy, it has another brand, Jooz, with an array of regular flavours such as orange, mango, guava, mixed fruit and lemon. "We expect Jooz to contribute upto

Rs 15 crore this year, while Madrid might get us Rs 10 crore," hopes Kumar.

The broad idea is to sell juices to the health conscious, and get a platform for further launches. "Health drinks are a great way to build our image," says Kumar, "We hope to touch the Rs 80-crore figure with Madrid in the next few years."

So, is Madrid the real challenge while Jooz mops up volumes to keep the company going? "To begin with, yes, but the future market will be Madrid's," asserts Kumar. "Madrid will do well with tier I and metropolitan consumers while Jooz would cater to the tier II and tier III cities."

An indication of the company's confidence is its commissioning of two more juice plants to add to its facility at Bhubaneshwar. The investment lined up: Rs 50 crore in Baddi, Himachal Pradesh, and Rs 30 crore in Jaipur, Rajasthan.

What about the brand promotion budget? Another Rs 2 crore has been earmarked for that. The message will be health, but not in any therapeutic sense.

"Nobody wants to associate a juice with a medicine," says Kumar, convinced all the same that Madrid's presence at chemist shops will enhance its nutritional underpinnings.

Much could depend on the health/recreation balance the brand strikes in consumer mindspace. But even more would depend on the direction Pepsi gives the market.