Tata Coffee to launch first brand in Russia by July
INDIA’S leading coffee conglomerate Tata Coffee, which is both into the growing of beans and their manufacture into powder, is all set to launch its first brand for Russia, the fastest-growing instant-coffee market in the world. Tata Coffee managing director MH Ashraff told ET here today that the brand of instant coffee to be launched in the Russian market would be manufactured in the company’s state-of-the-art freeze-dried plant at Theni in Tamil Nadu. The plant had been commissioned on February 27, this year. Mr Ashraff added that the company had not as yet taken a decision whether to launch its first brand in Russia under the brand-name of Eight O’Clock (EOC) or a new nomenclature. Tata Coffee had acquired EOC, an American heritage brand, for $220 million some nine months ago. One certainty, however, is that the instant coffee brand to be launched by Tata Coffee in Russia will be manufactured under what Mr Ashraff says is a superior process. As Mr Ashraff puts it, “The advantages of the freeze-dried technology is that the manufacturing process is done in a vacuum at minus-50 degrees Centigrade and the instant coffee retains its essential characteristics for a much longer time. We will also be using the latest technology for packaging our first instant-coffee brand for Russia by using glass jars or polypack.” Not that Tata Coffee is a stranger to the Russian market. It is already shipping out instant coffee to Russia but for an existing private label. In terms of volumes, Tata Coffee shipped out in the previous fiscal some 5,000 tonnes of instant coffee (12,500 tonnes of GBE or green-bean equivalent, bagging the award for being India’s leading instant-coffee exporter to Russia in 05-06, with the earlier numero-uno Nestle setting up an instant-coffee manufacturing facility in Russia itself). With its latest plant at Theni having a capacity of 2,000 tonnes per annum (tpa), Tata Coffee is, says Mr Ashraff, looking at shipping out the bulk of its freeze-dried instant coffee to Russia and the CIS states. “We will also,” he adds, “be looking at supplying a leading existing private label in Europe.”
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