Adding curry flavours

Y C Deveshwar has just turned his attention to his ITC Foods business once again. Since his cigarette business is at a lowdown due to the ba...

Y C Deveshwar has just turned his attention to his ITC Foods business once again. Since his cigarette business is at a lowdown due to the ban on advertising, ITC Foods is a better option to place his money on. With Deveshwar’s Sunfeast biscuits having captured 10 per cent of the market share within a year of their launch, the tycoon has turned his attention to expanding the pastes under his ‘‘Kitchens of India’’ brand.

The demand today is for readymade curries, pastes etc. because they save time and make things easier in the kitchen. The tycoon, taking advantage of that and having seen it proven by the sales of his ready-to-eat main courses and desserts, now has put his hopes on the pastes.

A Hyderabadi biryani paste, chicken curry paste and mutton curry paste are some of the new entrants. Some more will follow, which will be mostly regional specialties from Gujarat, Goa, South India and other states.

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Tasty Bites — a south-based ready to eat foods brand and Rasoi Magic, among a few others, will give ITC competition in this sector. The tycoon will have to handle that as well as organize demonstrations at counters to dispel misconceptions that his products are not 100 per cent natural. By mid June if all goes as planned, his curry pastes will be launched in all metros and exports will be made to the US and the UK.

Deveshwar expects a sales target of Rs. 500 crore within the next four years, out of which he hopes his pastes will account for 10 per cent. Let’s hope like his biscuits, his pastes too work wonders in the first shot. And for those who like a foretaste of what’s in the offing: await soon a range of Bengali cuisine products. Finally ITC’s Sonar Bangla theme will have some real flavour!

Pros plus work
After having expatriate general managers successfully run his hotels, Captain C.P. Krishnan Nair has now got himself yet another one to occupy the post of President Operations. With a boutique hotel coming up in Udaipur and franchise options to handle as well, the tycoon sorely needed a new president to manage these affairs.

Meanwhile, Nair’s Bangalore hotel, headed by an American and crafted by daughter-in-law Madhu, has been his prime passion. Its revenues have doubled during the last year, which was not too great a surprise considering that it accounts for over half the earnings of the Leela chain of hotels. The tycoon now has ambitions of expanding in the domestic market, either by direct acquisitions, joint ventures, brand extension or by managing hotels for other developers. In recent times the tycoon has made his hotels adapt to the changing times and thus introduced the catchy concept of luxury shopping within hotel premises.

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An entire wing of his Mumbai and Bangalore hotels have been devoted to the selling of luxury brands, thus giving competition to hotels like the Taj and ITC Maurya Sheraton that have also entered into this.

Nair’s Goa hotel, managed by a German, has just won the Imperial Mark, which is the world’s oldest and most prestigious award for brilliant levels of service. Though some hotels have been nominated in India over the years, none have ever won the honour.

With such performances from his three hotels one can’t wait for the tycoon to come out with his next one. Keeping a brigade of top-notch foreign talent to buttress the work of behind-the-scenes family workers seems to be the Captain’s formula.

Dilip Cherian runs the firm Perfect Relations. He is an economy watcher and tycoon tracker. The people he writes about are not clients. Send your insider dope to dilipcherian@now-india.net.in