Three weeks after receiving the approval from the Madras High Court to market its nutritious biscuit, British pharma and consumer goods maker GalxoSmithKline (GSK) has rolled out Horlicks Nutribic in the marketplace.
The biscuit, which was first launched in August this year, found itself in the eye of a storm over copyright and trademark infringement. The company, which had moved court was Britannia Industries saying that Nutribic borrowed from its Nutrichoice biscuits, which, like the former, was positioned on the health platform.
Britannia had claimed that GSK had lifted the packaging style and colour schemes from Nutrichoice for its Nutribic biscuit.
In an interim order, GSK was barred from manufacturing, selling and advertising Nutribic. This was challenged by GSK, which eventually got the go-ahead to launch the biscuit.
Nutribic has been launched in Mumbai, Delhi and the southern markets to begin with. It will be taken across the country subsequently.
Says Jayant Singh, marketing director, GlaxoSmithKline Consumer Healthcare, “In today’s scenario, everyone is hard pressed for time and mid-day snacking while being at work has become a norm. Consumers are increasingly looking at healthier choices even between meals and with Horlicks Nutribic; we offer these consumers a nutritious option."
GSK has launched two variants of Nutribic - a high-fibre digestive biscuit and a biscuit for diabetics.
Britannia's Nutrichoice also has similar variants in the marketplace. But Nutrichoice has been extended into categories such as cookies, crackers, thins, roasties etc.
In the Rs 12,000-crore biscuit category, the nutritious segment while small is growing at a clip of about 20-25 per cent per annum. The only deterrent here is the price with a 100-gram digestive pack of Nutribic, for instance, available at Rs 20 and a 250-gram pack available at Rs 50. The diabetic variant of Nutribic is even higher priced with a 75-gram pack available at Rs 25 and a 150-gram pack priced at Rs 50 respectively.
Regular 100-gram biscuits packs are priced between Rs 10 and Rs 15. Smaller packs, of course, consisting of three to five biscuits are priced at Rs 2 or Rs 5.
