South African Food Brand Futurelife to Start Production in India

South African nutritional food brand, Futurelife, that recently entered into a joint venture with Indian traditional snack brand, Haldirams, is likely to start production in India within the next few months, said a senior executive. The company is also likely to ‘Indianise’ the products to suit the Indian palette.

Speaking to BusinessLine, Mark Bunn, MD at Futurelife said currently, FutureLife is importing products in India, however, it does not consider this supply chain economics for its products.

Hence, “If all goes well, we will be starting local production in the next three-four weeks for the oats range. We would like the products to be made in India, by Indians. We have already started employing people in India.”

In the coming few years, Future Life plans to supply its products from India to the Asian subcontinent, Europe and Middle East.

Futurelife and Haldirams entered in a joint venture where Futurelife provides the IP, product and innovation whereas, Haldirams will provide the warehousing, supply chain and sales. Jointly, both companies will be handling the marketing.

Currently, the products are available in north India. The company is penetrating in Delhi, Punjab and Rajasthan.

When asked how it plans to compete with existing companies like Patanjali and Marico that operate in the same segments as Futurelife, he said: “Our products have a different texture, grain and quality. We are conducting two clinical trials in India on the formulations that we have; diabetics and immunity. We are not going to launch a product in India till it doesn’t have 40 per cent less sugar and sodium than the market leader in India.”

Where on the one hand, brands struggle to make the products as healthy as possible, several international brands have left the country with a bad taste in their mouth because they struggled to make the taste palatable to the Indian consumers.

When asked if Futurelife had to change the taste of its product to make it more palatable to Indians, he said: “We are sampling our products and on the basis of the feedback, we are making the products palatable to the Indian consumers. In the near future, our products are going to be tailored to the Indian palette.”

Futurelife is looking at getting at its granola bars, on the go consumption and potentially launching its breads in the country. “This fiscal, we will expand our reach with these select products available in India currently. Next fiscal, we will bring our other ranges, too.”

Currently, 11 products of its complete range in India through multiple portals in India including Haldiram’s website.

Source: THBL