Perfetti’s Indian offerings on global trip

CONFECTIONERY player Perfetti Van Melle has joined the ranks of global food majors borrowing products from their Indian subsidiaries. After Frito-Lay and McDonald’s, now it’s Perfetti whose local formulations are staging entry in global markets. Three of the company’s home-grown products — Alpenliebe Creamfills, Cofitos and Sour Marbels — are making inroads in European and South East Asian markets. While Perfetti’s China subsidiary began production of Alpenliebe Creamfills last month, parent company Perfetti Van Melle S.p.A has handpicked the coffee-flavoured candy brand Cofitos for the Italian and Poland markets. Another brand, Sour Marbels, has already been taken to Indonesia. “At most, other markets are tweaking grammage and flavours. But the basic formulation remains locally-developed,” said Perfetti India’s marketing head Sameer Suneja. The Rs 600-crore company has stepped up efforts to further localise and develop regional flavors of most global brands in its basket including flagship Alpenliebe, Center Fresh, BigBabol, Happydent White, Chlormint and Mentos. According to an AC Nielsen report released two weeks back on the global food industry, Asia Pacific and Latin American countries are the fastest growing markets in the confectionery sector. The confectionery, sweet biscuits and snacks sector recorded 6% growth in the Asia Pacific region, compared to a meager 2% growth in Europe. The report, which provides detailed insights on growth in the food and beverages sector, states that Asia Pacific, with its combination of mature markets like Australia and Japan, and developing markets such as China and India, provided a mix of high and low growth through last year. Among all markets that the Italy-based Perfetti operates in, India occupies the third slot in terms of consumption – after Italy and China. The sector is estimated at Rs 1,800-2,000 crore, according to Indian industry estimates. Perfetti’s third manufacturing facility in Uttaranchal is slated to begin production in April.

Courtesy: EconomicTimes

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