Priya eyes soft drinks

Aggressive pricing to be the USP

West Bengal is set to have yet another 'brand' in the soft drinks and juice segment as the manufacturers of popular biscuit brand 'Priya' has firmed up plans to foray into the market this July.

Kolkata based Priya Laboratories Pvt Ltd, promoted by Vinay Agarwal, director and SN Agarwal, who is also the managing director of Priya Food Products Limited-the manufacturer of Priya biscuit, will be launching soft drinks in 4 flavours and juice in 5 five flavours under the brand 'Priya Yours' in July.

"We will be launching our soft drinks products in 4 flavours including 'nimbu pani', fresh lime soda, ice cream soda and apple, and in that way, will not be competing with other major brands who primarily operate in cola and other popular segment," said Vinay Agarwal, director, Priya Laboratories.

The manufacturing units spreading over 2 bigha of land has been set in Rajarhat with an initial investment of Rs 1 crore, funded fully by the promoters. The current production capacity is 5,000 litre per day.

The company has set a target to register a turnover of Rs 3 crore within the current financial year, of which Rs 1 crore is expected from the soft drink segment and the rest from remaining Rs 2 crore from juice segment, informed Agarwal.

Owing to the bias towards ice cream soda in this part of the country the company is expecting to earn most part of its revenue from this segment, he added. "We are expecting to occupy a market share of 25 per cent in the market within the first month of our launch," said Agarwal. In juice segment, the lower price of 'Priya Yours' is going to fetch the company a significant market share, thinks Agarwal.

"The price of our juice products will be 30-35 per cent lower than other major brand available in the market. We will be sourcing a major portion of the raw material from local market and will be sourcing some from South India for quality issues," Agarwal noted.

Initially, the products will be available in West Bengal, Assam, Orissa, Jharkhand and Bihar. The company has set plans to appoint 20-25 distributors for each district for marketing their products, noted Agarwal. The company will be spending Rs 50 lakh to Rs 1 crore for branding and market promotion activities in 2005-06, he added.