Amul to unveil Trix by December

Wafer biscuit brand to be priced at Rs 5

MUMBAI: Amul plans to launch Trix, a wafer biscuit coated with rich milk chocolate, in December. Cadbury’s Perk and Munch from Nestle are other two major players in the wafer chocolate segment.

Trix, to be priced at Rs 5, will be available in strawberry and chocolate flavours, sources said. R S Sodhi, chief general manager, Amul, confirmed this but declined to give further details. Amul is expected to launch a new pack of its flagship chocolate brand Milk Chocolate along with Trix. The new pack, weighing 26g, will be available for Rs 10.

Cadbury’s Dairy Milk is the leader with 30% share of the total chocolate market in the country.  Amul is also considering plans to enter niche segments such as health chocolates, which will be fortified with vitamins and minerals. Rishikesh Bhatgiwale, depot-in-charge of Amul mainline sales in Mumbai, was unavailable for comment.

Amul, which did a soft-launch of sugar-free chocolates a few months ago got boost to its rollout plans when the Delhi High Court dismissed Cadila Healthcare Ltd’s petition two weeks ago for the sole ownership of the sugar-free nomenclature. The company now has plans to bring out sugar-free chocolate slabs by January next year.

Currently, Amul has Chocominis in the sugar-free chocolate segment, which is priced at Rs 40 for 50g. The launch of Trix will open another flank for Amul, as it competes with multinational rivals Cadbury and Nestle.

The chocolate market in India is estimated at Rs 1,500 crore.

Cadbury has some 72% share of the market. The annual per capita consumption fovr chocolate in the country is 0.14g compared with 10 kg in the US. India accounts for 0.5% of the $57 billion global chocolate market.

But that hasn’t deterred the international players entering into the Indian market.

After Hershey entry early this year, Italian chocolate company Ferrero inked a deal with Maharashtra government to set up a wholly owned subsidiary unit at Indapur near Pune. The unit will roll out its products from mid-2009.

The company will employ 500 people from the local areas and invest close to Rs 200 crore for setting up the infrastructure. The company had test-marketed its products in Baramati before finalising the deal, a government official said.