Tata Tea will relaunch its speciality tea brand 'Darjeeling' this December. The relaunch will be in terms of repackaging and repricing.
According to Sangeeta Talwar, executive director - marketing, Tata Tea, the company had introduced four speciality tea brands - Nilgiri, Assam, Srilankan and Darjeeling a while ago - but they did not do well.
"Consumers are not used to long tea leaves, reason why the speciality brands did not do well. We will therefore rebrand and relaunch the Darjeeling speciality tea brand in December this year," Talwar explained.
The company is also looking at introducing a new brand for iced tea. The company will start test-marketing it this fiscal.
"We are looking at introducing a wide range of beverages and liquids, building on the wellness space. We will use the distribution and marketing muscle of the Himalayan water brand for all our beverages brands that we introduce in future," Talwar said.
On the other hand, Himalayan, which was relaunched in Mumbai about 4 months ago, is being rolled out nationally, and in the initial months will use Tata Tea's marketing and distribution muscle to establish itself, in both domestic and overseas markets, informed Pradeep Poddar, CMD of Mount Everest Mineral Water Limited, a Tata Group company.
At the same time, Tata Tea is looking at introducing some of its global products into India but with different brand names.
"A few of our beverages sold overseas would have a good market in India and we are currently looking at bringing them to India. But the brand names will be different," informed Talwar.
Simultaneously, Tata Tea is looking at joint-ventures with companies in Russia to enter the Russian beverages retailing space but with new brand names.
The company is also planning to build on the wellness space and introduce newer variants of its Green Tea brand as well as more liquids that build on the wellness and preventive values.
Tata Tea is now a global company with 42 brands in 45 countries. The consolidated turnover of the company and all its subsidiaries was Rs 4,432 crore (Rs 44.32 billion), of which 90 per cent was contributed by the Group's worldwide branded tea and coffee business.