Mohan Meakins to go low on liquor, high on food

NEW DELHI: Mohan Meakins (MML) is taking a relook at its liquor businesses as it eyes a bigger piece of action in the food industry. The company plans to rationalise its sprawling liquor portfolio of close to 60 brands to make it more manageable and find more time and resources for a bigger thrust on food.

Besides, it is launching new whisky and vodka brands and has introduced more flavours under the Gold Coin brand. It is also expanding its breakfast cereal basket. “We have identified 10-15 liquor brands to focus all our resources on,” Vinay Mohan, director, MML told ET. The company is also busy beefing up its food division with newer products and capital investments.

While the company is talking to a few strategic partners to forge a possible alliance for its breweries division, it plans to relaunch Solan No 1, Black Knight whisky and Old Monk Reserve. The new launches would include, Top Brass in the ad mix segment, Solan Gold Whisky in the premium segment and a new brand of vodka that will replace Caplansky, its existing low-profile vodka brand.

Simultaneously, there are internal discussions underway on the fate of other brands that add little value to the group’s business. These include, Diplomat whisky and Triple Crown brandy, which sells insignificant volumes in south India.

MML is betting big on the food business, which hitherto, has played a second fiddle to the group’s liquor business. The division, which emerged as a by-product of MML’s core liquor activity, is being treated with much more respect now.
“We are quite bullish on the food segment and want to make it a Rs 100-crore business in the next five years,” Mr Mohan said.

The food division currently contributes close to Rs 30 crore in revenues. Spearheading the move would be Mohun’s brand of breakfast cereals and the fruit-based beverage brand, Gold Coin.

To begin with, MML has entered the Tetrapak segment — Gold was mainly available in glass bottles up to now — and launched some six new flavours under the Gold Coin brand. These include Gold Coin fruit juices (orange and mixed), nectars (litchi and guava and pineapple) and mango drinks.

MML is working with a German food company, Dohler, to develop more flavours to make big plunge in the juice and fruit drink market. “We are taking Dohler’s help to launch a kids’ drink shortly, which will be fortified with minerals,” Mr Mohan said.

He added that MML would invest upwards of Rs 10 crore to install a Tetrapak machine in-house and set smaller units to make breakfast cereals in north India, Maharashtra and possibly in Chennai. In breakfast cereals, the company is launching three new variants of cornflakes — chocos, strawberry and mango.