Heinz India will spend Rs 100 crore to relaunch Complan

KOLKATA: Kraft Heinz India is going to spend Rs 100 crore over the next six months to relaunch Complan at a time when the malt food drink category growth rate has slipped, its managing director Niladri Deb said.

Deb said the company went for a complete brand make-over by making Complan better on the top two consumer drivers of the category – taste and nutrition. He said the company wants to grow Complan to more than Rs 1500 crore sales by 2020-21 from at around Rs 700 crore now.

Complan enjoys around 8% share of the Rs 5,500 crore malted food drink market in India which is led by GSK’s Horlicks. The category growth rate has slipped to 3-5% but the company wants to grow upwards of 10% in this segment.

Kraft Heinz India is also studying opportunities to enter into compact concentrated nutrition segment with products like fortified biscuit and expand its another top brand Glucon-D into sachets and flavours. Glucon-D too contributes around 40% of revenues at around Rs 700 crore and is the leader in the glucose segment with 65% share.

Deb said the last quarter (April-June) was harsh when sales declined by 15% due to wholesalers de-stocking products in run up to the goods and services tax ( GST) regime. “The impact was particularly harsh for us since two of our products, Glucon-D and Nycil, tend to sell more during the quarter,” he said.