Ayurvedic boost?

It’s attempting to kill two birds with one stone. Dabur India, the Rs 2,234-crore consumer goods major, is foraying into the malted foods drink (MFD) segment, a Rs 1,500 crore pie. It’s doing so with the launch of a chocolate-flavoured variant of its ayurvedic Chyawanprash product, dubbed Chyawan Junior.

So, not only does Dabur gain a foothold in the MFD segment, till date dominated by the likes of GlaxoSmithKline Consumer and Cadbury, it also gets an opportunity to increase penetration of its Chaywanprash product.

“Although Dabur Chyawanprash is a market leader in its category (with a stranglehold on two-thirds of the market), the product has very low penetration—just about 4 per cent of the Indian population.

We are therefore putting in a concerted effort at expanding the Chyawanprash category by introducing new and innovative variants,” says K.K. Rajesh, Executive Vice President, Dabur India. “We have tried to develop a product that overcomes the taste barrier faced by Chyawanprash.

It satisfies the requirement of mothers to give nutrition to kids and the kids’ demand to have something tasty,” he adds. Dabur’s other innovations in the Chywanprash category include a sugarfree variant that’s targeted at senior citizens. “We are trying to break the seasonal factor by increasing Chyawanprash consumption through different formats,” explains Rajesh.

An entry into the MFD segment makes sense, given that it’s growing at 15 per cent per annum. Of course, here Dabur will have to contend with GlaxoSmithKline’s flagship products, Boost and Horlicks. Bournvita from Cadbury, Milo from Nestle and Heinz’s Complan are the others in the MFD fray.

For now, though, Dabur is content just to have got its foot into the door of this market. “We have entered a segment that is double our health supplement turnover. We expect the segment to contribute 15-20 per cent of revenue in the next five years.” Dabur Chyawanprash, the group’s main product, contributes Rs 175 crore to total turnover. The entry into the MFD segment should help nudge that figure further upwards.