MOVE over supermarkets, departmental stores. The friendly neighbourhood panwallah is all set to play a major role in the corporate sector what with ITC Ltd’s food division now banking on this segment to give it the winning edge in the war to win the loyalty of Indian palates.

ITC is all set to leverage its proven strength in retailing especially through the panwallah segment with which it is particularly familiar, thanks to its cigarette business, to emerge as a leading player in the branded biscuits market which it entered barely over month ago.

"While grocery stores will remain a large part of the retail rollout plan, growth for us will come from the neighbourhood convenience stores and panwallahs who are familiar with our company and brands. The biscuits will now be available across the country through such outlets," says ITC’s Pune Branch Manager, Mr. Ravi Desai.

While making inroads into retail has remained a tough challenge for many MNCs, ITC seems to have cracked the complicated code if you consider the fact that in a place like Pune, for example- it services four thousand such outlets on a daily basis with the figure increasing to over two-and-a-half lakh across the State.

The company has already set in motion a multi-crore brand-building and promotion exercise for its foray into the biscuits business.

At stake is a Rs 2,700-crore organised market for the product, which is currently dominated by Britannia and Parle, which currently account for over 80 per cent of the market.

The company’s brand strategy seems to be based on giving established favourites like Marie and cream biscuit segment a new interpretation to seduce palates. Thus, while the Marie takes on a new, orange flavoured avatar, the company is hoping to lure Indian biscuit lovers with an all-new butterscotch cream avatar for the latter, under its ‘Sunfeast’.

"Flavour innovation will lead growth in the cream segment and we will continually look at launching value-added products to gain leadership position" says Mr. Desai.

Whether the panwallah will smoothen the journey to number one position remains to be seen but the company is already claiming that it has got 4-5 per cent of the 600-700 tonnes/month Mumbai market just one month into the launch.

The company is already launching the product across various cities and plans to make the brand a national one in the next few months.

That is also planning to offer trade margins that will give competition a run for its money will, no doubt, help.