Munchee, now premium Indian brand

Ravi Ladduwahetty

Ceylon Biscuits Ltd, manufacturers and exporters of the Munchee range has made giant inroads into the India confectionary market with premium prices ahead of other premium brands there - Britannia, Parle, and Sun Feast.

The company which operates in the Indian market as Ceylon Biscuits India (Pvt) Ltd through its Patiala factory for the North Indian market, also feeds south India through its Colombo factory manufactured products - biscuits, cakes, cereals and others.

However, Ceylon Biscuits Ltd Chairman Mineka Wickremasinghe, expressed grave concern over the inability to export the product Tic Tac which is manufactured by the company in Colombo under license from Ferroro of Italy, the world's largest chocolate manufacturer, into India due to the recalcitrance of Indian authorities.

"We are greatly disappointed that we are unable to export the product to India which has a large scale potential there but due to the opposition of the India authorities, despite the product having a 35% raw material input in Sri Lanka and despite having the potential for export India under the provisions of the Indo- Lanka Free Trade Agreement," he said.

He said the Indian Commerce Ministry has not given the approval despite the Sri Lankan Ministry of Commerce giving encouragement for exports to subcontinental markets under the Indo-Lanka Free Trade Agreement.

The CBL Chairman also noted that India was now emerging as a near developed country with its middle class growing in numbers with increased spending power and that India was changing its traditional consumer brands into the new innovations of Ceylon Biscuits.

CBL Marketing Director Nandana Wickramage said: "We have already a dealer network of 400 distributors all over India which speak volumes of the acceptance and popularity of the entire Munchee range- biscuits, cakes and cereals. He said the South Indian market was very strong where there were 250 dealers in Kerala alone and the products were sought after in super markets.

CBL will also venture into a new product for the Indian market- the eggless cake which is also expected to make giant strides due to the prevailing avian flu there.