Courtesy: Business Line
Mangalore, Jan 27: After tasting success in `Fun Tan' chocolate - a bitter chocolate rich in cocoa - the Mangalore-based multi-state cooperative Campco (Central Arecanut and Cocoa Marketing and Processing Cooperative) is now planning to deviate from normal `me-too' brands and focus attention on niche segments to expand its chocolate product portfolio.
The cooperative is planning to launch chocolates for diabetics and serial bars (chocolate `chikkis') in the domestic market. Sources told Business Line here on Wednesday that the cooperative would introduce two new niche chocolate products in the market by March or April.
The cooperative has entered into an agreement with a Chennai-based pharmaceutical company to manufacture chocolate bars for diabetics. The product will be manufactured at Campco's chocolate manufacturing unit in Puttur of Dakshina Kannada district. Apart from manufacturing chocolate bars for the company, the cooperative is also planning to launch this product on its own with some modifications.
The other chocolate product on the card is serial bar or chocolate `chikkis'.
The serial bar has already been test marketed in various parts of the country, and the response is good, they said. These products will be launched by April.
"All these years, we were concentrating on normal `me-too' brands and competing with multinational companies (MNCs). However, MNCs can spend huge amount of money on marketing and advertisements. A cooperative cannot spend huge amounts on these activities. So we thought of venturing into niche segments of chocolates," a source in the cooperative said.
`Fun Tan, a success': Meanwhile the sources said that the Campco's `Fun Tan' chocolates have become a success in the market. Launched in September 2005, the cooperative has already sold 7.48 tonnes of this particular product.
Nearly 900 cases of `Fun Tan' are being sold every month. The demand for less-sweet chocolate products prompted the cooperative to launch `Fun Tan' chocolate four months ago, sources added.