A new range of Cereal Bars is set to be launched in the local market as early as next week by Ceylon Biscuits, the makers of Sri Lanka's well-known Munchee biscuits brand, officials told the the Sunday Times FT.
The product, named "Nutri Line", will be offered to "mothers to give their children as a nutritious meal", according to the manufacturer’s, CBL Foods International’s, Managing Director, Susantha Gunawardene. He also indicates that the company, which is a wholly owned subsidiary of Ceylon Biscuits and which also manufactures Ritzbury chocolates and Tiara cakes hopes to have this new cereal bar range on store shelves by November. “Nutri Line” cereal bars will initially be available in pack size, followed by an individual bar, both with a shelf life of seven months. Further, as this bar is totally vegetarian, the product is also expected to have a high export potential, especially for the Indian market where Munchee products have already been faring well in recent times.
The new cereal bar being produced at the factory. |
Meanwhile, according to Mr. Gunawardene, results for two other well-recognized CBL Foods International brands, Tiara cakes and Ritzbury chocolates, have also been positive overall, despite consumer worries about the economy and personal spending. In fact, Ritzbury is said to be the market leader in local confectionaries, according to data gathered by the local office of international market research firm AC Nielsen, which attributes a 40% market share to the brand.
The same also applies to Tiara cakes, partly because of its availability in over 50,000 outlets island-wide and partly because it lacks any true national-level competitors.
As a result, Mr. Gunawardene indicates that Tiara currently sells 400 tons of cake a month, 95% of which is sold to the local market; and while sales have flattened over the last eight months, compared to the last five years of consistent growth, the forecast is only improving with "life again coming into the market in three to six months". He further suggests that Tiara's position is helped along because it is the only cake producer in the local market to offer a seven-month shelf life without refrigeration, and, most importantly, without excessive amounts of preservatives used.
This is achieved, according to Mr. Gunawardene, because Tiara cakes are produced under clean room conditions. In fact, he notes that CBL Foods International is the only food manufacturer in Sri Lanka to boast the International Standards Organization’s “ISO 100 K” certification. What this means is that because Tiara cakes are manufactured in a clean room environment, there are fewer particles within the cake's packing and so the product will degrade slower.
Susantha
Gunawardene |
Degradation is also further limited by the use of ingredients such as pasteurized eggs. As such, primarily because of its seven-month shelf life, Tiara cakes enjoy an edge that its current competitors do not because their products spoil easily in local stores since, reveals Mr. Gunawardene, and “given the distribution network in Sri Lanka, outlets are neither clean nor refrigerated".
In fact, the demand for Munchee (a reported 65% market share), Ritzbury and Tiara are such that plans are under way to increase capacity with a view to greater exports. Says Mr. Gunawardene, "Ceylon Biscuits as a group pioneers every product range that we make, and our objective now is to vastly increase exports". As such, plans are currently on the drawing board to increase production capacity by early 2011 with six additional acres of land having already been bought adjoining the 15 acre Tiara and Ritzbury manufacturing complex in Ranala, where all three brands' production capabilities will be scaled up; with a new manufacturing plant already built for Ritzbury product lines which is just awaiting commissioning so production may begin by the end of the year.
In the meantime, taking into account the Ceylon Biscuits group's grand plans for India, is there a worry that Indian companies would attempt to challenge their leadership in local markets? It appears that Indian companies are currently “making an effort” using imports and there are further indications that they may also soon start manufacturing locally, according to Mr. Gunawardene.
However, he also indicates that the reality may be that the Indian market is growing so rapidly that they probably just have enough problems keeping up at home to focus on Sri Lanka, and, if this did prove to be the case, they might not even see Ceylon Biscuits as a potential threat to them in India either. |
E-mail