Tata Tea seeks nod to pack tea bags

Tata Tea has sought the permission of the Tea Board to start facilities for packaging normal tea bags at Indore and Kolkata.

Tata Tea Managing Director P T Siganporia said the response to Tetley's four Indianised flavours of tea bags was "good" and it was doing "fairly well". "It appears that the repeat supply of product was underestimated."

Citing an example, Siganporia said that within a few weeks of starting when he met dealers in Delhi and other places he found that the product, which was there for distribution across Delhi, Ludhiana, Chandigarh, Bareli and Agra, was all absorbed in Delhi alone.

"I had to go and make arrangement and take Tea Board's permission to open up packaging facilities which were for normal tea bags in Indore to pack Tetley's flavoured tea bags to supply to the market," Siganporia said.

Siganporia said they were finalising further tea bag packing facilities with capacity available for normal tea packaging in Kolkata.

Incidentally, in an attempt to increase its presence in South Asian countries, specially in India, Tata Tetley, the UK-based 100% subsidiary of Tata Tea, had launched tea bags in four special Indianised flavours.

"We have just redone Tetley in a very big way and have come out with Indianised flavours in tea bag formats," Siganporia said.

Siganporia said the company has used a lot of consumer insight and development process, including imported flavour, to develop the product which tastes like normal tea made at home.

"That was the real challenge. If somebody makes the tea, he can make as strong or as light a tea as he/she wants to be with milk," Siganporia said, adding, "it is absolutely geared up for Indian palate."

The MD said the company had done a lot of homework for launching the product in India. "It took us two years to launch the product."