Amalgam Speciality Foods India Pvt Ltd is set to expand its frozen food portfolio with the introduction of 35 new SKUs in two months’ time. The company, which launched the Keya and Sumeru ambient and frozen food brands a few years ago, before subsequently selling them, now offers products under the ‘Buffet’ brand name, which it says is a new interpretation of the Keya label.
“Keya’s transition into the Buffet brand began in July 2014. By November, the Buffet range was in stores, offering 55 SKUs. We are on course to adding 35 new SKUs in the next two months,” says Sundeep Kurian, business head, Amalgam Speciality Foods Pvt Ltd.
A family-held food group spearheaded by Abraham J Tharakan, Amalgam was established in 1977. By 1995 it had grown to be one of the largest seafood exporters from India with eighteen factories located on both the West and East coasts of India. Amalgam was the pioneer in setting up India’s first processing plant for Individually Quick Frozen cooked seafoods (ICF), the first Freeze Drying facility in India (AFDC), the first Shrimp Feed mill (HIC), and the first Cold Chain Logistic operations (Snowman Logistics) on a national scale.
Amalgam Group was also a founding partner of Snowman Logistics back in 1997, and gradually diluted their stake by 2006, because company wanted to focus on the frozen food business.
A few years on, the company began marketing a range of dried spices and culinary herbs, soups and snacks in retail packs under the ‘Keya’ brand name. These two brands now have well established presence across modern trade formats and are slowly establishing its presence in the United States, the European Union, the Middle East and the Far East.
Over the years the Group has restructured its focus from ingredients for both the food and feed industry and now concentrating on the Indian domestic retail market with its frozen and ambient food brands.
Amalgam has emerged as a significant food group in India, processing and marketing a range of different foods both for export and for the domestic market. It also has a robust domestic frozen retail distribution network covering all the major cities of India. “Amalgam Frozen Foods has been growing at 10 per cent YoY with our current fiscal turnover touching Rs 25 crore,” Kurian says.
On course to doubling it turnover in the next fiscal (FY2015-16), Amalgam’s success will also depend in large part on retailers across the country committing to preserving the properties of frozen food through continuous refrigeration.
“There is certainly an ever-present challenge of educating retailers on cold storage and get them to cooperate in offering quality products to consumers,” Kurian admits. “At our end, we ensure that every angle is covered — from manufacturing to data logging in trucks to track temperature control during transit. However, the last mile is difficult to guarantee. Retailers need to be educated on why less than continuous temperature control dilutes brand and well as retailer value, in the eyes of consumers.”
By Nupur Chakraborty
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