MUMBAI, November 4: Baskin Robbins will soon have a country cousin. The internationally famous ice-cream retail outlet brand, managed in the country by a 40:60 joint venture between Allied Domecq Retailing, the United Kingdom-based multinational, and the Ravi Ghai group of "Kwality" fame, will be joined by a new brand, `mdpm', in India. The brand is targeted at the country's catering and institutional customers.

The joint venture company, which manages the Baskin Robbins outlets, and will now manufacture the new brand, is Maharashtra Dairy Products Manufacturing. Internationally, Baskin Robbins is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Allied Domecq. The new brand, mdpm, will widen the focus of the joint venture from the creme-de-la-creme, which the venture targets through the stylish Baskin Robbins upmarket outlets. Through catering service purchases, Maharashtra Dairy Products will now reach a mass market, not Allied Domecq's forte in the international arena.

The new brand will also be sold to institutional clients including topnotch hotels and airlines.

In the process, Baskin Robbins outlets will sell around 60 per cent of total ice-cream sold by the venture, while the catering and institutional clients are expected to lift between 35 per cent and 40 per cent. Baskin Robbins accounts for 100 per cent of the joint venture's sales currently. "The main aim for developing a new brand was to avoid an erosion of the existing Baskin Robbins brand equity in India," said assistant country manager Rajiv Varma.

A brand with a 100 per cent local content, mdpm is not only being launched with zero overheads, it will also take care of the unused capacity, which will lead to a rise in production, said Varma. The brand is competitively priced in the range of Rs 70 to Rs 110 for ice-cream coming in packs ranging from 1 litre to 4 litres. Baskin Robbins will also be offering discounts to caterers. Thus, even on low margins, the company will benefit from increased volumes. "We are trying to economise our production costs and plan to curtail the wastage which will in turn be passed down to the customer as price cuts," said Varma. However, the company will not compromise on the quality even if profitability comes in late, he maintains. The brand will be launched in Mumbai, Bangalore and Delhi within a few weeks.

Apart from caterers, the company is also targeting institutional customers like the Taj group and Hyatt group for mdpm where the demand exists for a premium ice-cream. The company is basically looking at a ready market with larger volumes.

In another shift from policy, Baskin Robbins recently undertook a price cut bringing it down to Rs 25 per scoop from Rs 31. The company took this conscious decision to bring down prices in the range "affordable", said Varma.

While this has partly helped the company achieve better volumes, Baskin Robbins has been able to generate volumes through an increase in customer base in this premium segment over the last three years. After the company undertook the new pricing strategy, volumes in Bangalore and Hyderabad rose by 65 per cent and 40 per cent respectively. The shift in customer-base from traditional sweet meat to ice-creams, in general, has also helped generate volumes in addition to the marginal increase in per capita consumption of ice-cream.

Withdraws signature brand from domestic market

Baskin Robbins has withdrawn its signature brand, `Pralines-n-Cream' from the Indian market due to import restrictions on certain key ingredients it required for its production. It has also started manufacturing all its ice-creams with vegetarian ingredients to suit Indian sensibilities. The company has made a representation to the ministry of tourism to assist it in correcting the situation.While `Pralines-n-Creams' is one of the largest selling flavours in Baskin Robbins' galleries internationally, another flavour it had to discontinue in India is Jamoca Coffee. The Jamoca coffee bean had to be imported and this went against the coffee export promotion policy of the government. While Baskin Robbins has done away with ingredients like gelatine and marshmallow which have animal origins, it has instead concentrated on indigenously developing flavours for the Indian palate. These include flavours like pista, badam and kesar.

Copyright © 1997 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.