Anil Urs
ITC Foods’ premium ready-to-eat
gourmet brand "Kitchens of India" has decided to pamper the Indian sweet tooth.
It is now planning to introduce several Indian sweets and desserts, mid-priced branded
spices and ready-to-cook pastes and masalas.
The plan is to offer a wider range of
savings to complete the menu in the Indian Kitchen. "We are experimenting with a
number of options, and propose to introduce new dishes practically every two months to
keep the taste buds tingling," Ravi Naware, divisional chief executive, ITC Foods,
told ET.
"We have come out with a platter of
vegetarian and non-vegetarian curries and various dals under the Kitchens of India brand.
The first of the sweets, Khubani Ka Meetha is being brought out under a new sub-brand
Gharana," he added. There are some offerings in the Gharana range, including Paneer
Darbari- soft cubes of fresh cottage cheese in aromatic tomato gravy, laced with butter.
Paneer Mushroom Kofta- mushroom and fresh cottage cheese dumplings simmered in aromatic
gravy- and Chicken Darbari- cubes of chicken in aromatic tomato gravy.
Last year, the company launched canned
ready-to-eat gourmet cuisine from ITC’s Bukhara (cuisine from North-West Frontier),
Dum Pukht (cuisine from central India) and Dakshin (cuisine from south India) restaurants.
The overseas audience for this includes the large NRI market, said Mr. Naware. The
Kitchens of India brand has been aggressively scouting for traditional recipes outside
those created by Welcomgroup restaurants to expand their product range. The company is
getting serious about the snack segment, and has introduced bischips (baked wafer-thin
wheat-based biscuits) for the health freaks. It may soon evolve into chips, bhujias and a
variety of other snacking options.
Kitchens of India expects to become a Rs 50
crore- 60 crore company in four years. Currently, the foods division contributes Rs 6
crore to the group’s turnover. According to industry estimates, the ready-to-serve
foods market is expected to grow from the current Rs 60 crore to Rs 250 crore in five
years.
