The Hindu Business Line : VVF to expand brand portfolio

THE Rs 502-crore VVF Ltd, which has a presence in the personal care and oleochemicals categories, has charted out a strategy to expand its personal care business.

The company is planning to enhance its brand portfolio as well as expand its personal division to more categories. At present, VVF sells soaps under its two brands — Doy Care and Jo. It also contract manufactures soaps for several well known companies including Johnson & Johnson, Henkel, Reckitt Benckiser, JL Morrison and Cussons.

"We are increasing focus on developing our own brands. In addition to Doy Care and Jo, we are planning to add more brands to our portfolio by next fiscal. This would help us to tap newer categories and consumer segments. We will expand our portfolio beyond soaps to include products such as body lotions among other personal care products," Mr Piyush Jindal, Vice-President (Personal Care), VVF Ltd, said.

VVF has also hiked expenditure on advertising and marketing significantly to increase brand awareness. "We have upped our marketing expenditure to double digit crore. Our distribution network has also increased significantly this year to nine lakh outlets," Mr Jindal said.

VVF expects its personal care division to cross Rs 250 crore this year, up from less than Rs 200 crore in the last fiscal. The company is targeting an overall turnover of Rs 800 crore in the current year and Rs 1,000 crore by 2007.

In what would be a first for the company, VVF has initiated discussion with a few foreign firms to manufacture and market their products in India. "We are in dialogue with a couple of European companies to contract manufacture, and market/distribute their products in India," Mr Jindal said.

Apart from five facilities in India, VVF also has units in Dubai, and Canada which cater to the company's overseas customers.

Article E-Mail :: Comment :: Syndication :: Printer Friendly Page

Stories in this Section
Hospitality co CGH Earth to focus on TN, Karnataka

VVF to expand brand portfolio

BP Group targets rural India with hybrid cooking appliance

An encroachment into space and time

Two-year validity on prepaids of Tata mobiles

John Abraham to endorse Castrol

NEC arm to focus on commercial customers

Tata launches Indica V2 Turbo

India's flavour of the week for BBC from Sunday