Ice cream brand earmarks Rs 150 crore for TN operation

Nitin Arora, CEO, Creambell said, “Our long-term goal is to become Chennai’s favourite ice cream brand. With respect to TN, in Phase 1, we have about 15 stores in place. We plan on setting up as many as 1,000 outlets in the retail space, employing more than 100 pushcarts and 5 to 10 eco-friendly e-rickshaws as well. In Phase 2, we intend to set up 50 parlours branded as Scoopers across TN. 

There will also be 50-odd shop-in-shop (SIS) modelled hybrid eateries that will retail our brand of ice cream.” An investment of Rs 150 crore over the next few years has been planned for TN. The ice-cream market in India is estimated to be worth Rs 4,500 crore. The nature of the highly fragmented industry implies that there are hundreds of brands competing for market share here. Tamil Nadu accounts for a significant share of the overall South Indian market. Creambell already has a presence in Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka and Goa. 

Arora goes on tell us, “The company has a presence in about 21 states and union territories, with more than 1,000 channel partners (distributors). Our retail footprint encompasses 70,000 outlets (retailers) and 15,000 mobile outlets in the form of pushcarts. We have also diversified now with two new products – a nondairy whipped cream and a cooking cream brand.” 

Creambell is expanding beyond India, aiming for growing international presence. With major interests in the Africa diary market, Creambell is in process of introducing its ice cream brand in the continent gradually in countries like Kenya, Zambia Mozambique and Tanzania Arora said as the input costs incurred in manufacturing of ice creams have been on the upswing, the company had raised the prices of some of its ice creams by about 7 to 8 per cent. We have absorbed about two-thirds of the rise in costs and passed on one-third of the cost to the customer.” 

Arora also highlighted the contrast between developed markets (like the US) where the per capita consumption of ice-cream could range between 15 to 20 litres per person and developing markets such as India, where the figure ranges between 300-450 ml per person.