GCC lines up special schemes to power 'Girijan' honey

To popularise its 'Girijan' brand honey, Girijan Cooperative Corporation Limited (GCC) has decided to introduce special schemes, besides spending some money on television and radio commercials.

During the current honey season, GCC has collected 3,500 quintals of honey from tribals, and is expecting to procure another 1,000 quintals in November as compared to 2,000 quintals collected during last fiscal.

"Tribals from Andhra Pradesh, Orissa, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka are bringing huge quantities of honey to GCC as it is paying Rs 80 for a kg of raw honey. To market this huge quantity of honey, we are planning to implement special schemes," K Rajeswara Rao, general manager (marketing), GCC, told Business Standard.

GCC honey is currently the brand leader in the state. GCC's retail division has been marketing about 12 products like honey, tamarind, soaps and hill brooms among others.

In the current fiscal, the corporation aims to achieve a turnover of Rs 15 crore on retail sales as compared to Rs 7.70 crore in 2004-05.

"Normally, honey sales contribute 50-55 per cent of our total retails sales. Now that we have huge quantities of honey stocked with us, we are planning to dispose them of by this fiscal end, and therefore expect our retail market sales turnover to touch Rs 15 crore," Rao said.

GCC has recently introduced Ritu soaps based on aloe vera. To increase its honey sales, GCC has decided to give one Ritu aloe vera soap (Rs 10) to consumers for free on purchase of one kg of honey.

The corporation is also offering one kg of honey (Rs 180 per kg) to the wholesale dealers for free on purchase of 15 kg of honey. Apart from this, GCC is planning to air TV and FM radio advertisements in a big way to popularise the Girijan brand products, mainly honey, Rao said.

"We have been receiving many enquires from neighbouring states to market our Girijan honey. Very shortly, we are going to appoint C&F agents in Orissa and Karnataka. With these efforts, we are confident of achieving close to Rs 8 crore turnover on honey sales in the current fiscal," he added.