This broadens the price bracket between Rs 10 to Rs 30 with clear demarcation between Candies collection priced between Rs 10-15, Baskin Robbins' regular range at Rs 27 per scoop, and the King's Ransom range at Rs 30 per scoop.

The multinational which sells its ice cream products through exclusive Baskin Robbins galleries, is also talking to various movie theatres and leading departmental stores in Indian metros to enter into an agreement for marketing the Candies collection.

Says Allied Domecq Retailing International country manager (India) Rajiv Varma: ``The strategy behind launching these economically priced candies is two-pronged: To attract children who cannot afford to spend (Rs 27) on a Baskin Robbins scoop, to visit the store more often; and to target shoppers and consumers at movie theatres to purchase these readily available and economically priced candies in pouchs.''

The Candies collection have been initially launched in four types: mango, chocobar, lipstick and orange. The company expects to garner better volumes through the launch of Candies collection. It plans to achieve a target of one million units of Candies in thefirst year.

Baskin Robbins has opened a total of 160 stores in 46 cities in the country. The target is to cover 50 cities by the end of this calendar year, said Varma. The Candies collection will be made available in all these cities and small towns where the company expects a better response from consumers leveraging on the low price benefit.

The company has garnered volumes of over one million litres in India, and these have grown at the rate of about 45 per cent in 1998-99 over the previous year.

The re-introduction of the King's Ransom range in India has come about on popular demand, says Varma. The premium range priced at Rs 30 per scoop includes: Pralines'N Cream, Pink Bubblegum, English Toffee and Chocolate Almonds Praline. This range was discontinued last year due to import problems with certain ingredients. All ingredients, with the exception of milk and sugar, are imported for this range to ensure the original taste of the ice cream.

Saarc sales to be sourced from India
India has been made the sourcing base for Baskin Robbins ice cream products which will be exported to neighbouring countries like Bangladesh, Nepal and Sri Lanka.

According to Allied Domecq Retailing International country manager (India) Rajiv Varma: ``The exports will kick off in November to Dhaka to start with, and will eventually cover key areas in Nepal and Sri Lanka, soon.''

The company has adopted the franchise route in these countries to market its products through exclusive galleries. The products are manufactured in Pune in Maharashtra. The current capacity of the Pune plant is about 2 million litres of finished product.

In India, Baskin Robbins operates through a 40:60 joint venture between Allied Domecq Retailing and the Ravi Ghai Group company Maharashtra Dairy Products Manufacturing. The company's sales stand at aroundRs 15 crore.

The Indian joint venture company has targeted a turnover of Rs 25-30 lakh per month through exports alone. Says Varma, ``These countries attract a number of tourists, and we believe that these will be among our prime target consumers. Exports will also help in leveraging imports of critical ingredients into India.''

Internationally, Allied Domecq operates through a similar sourcing base route. For instance, Canada and US are the two large sourcing bases to the Middle East.