Nestle PK has competition in health food...
Just spotted a new line of milk food products by Cottage Foods. While I reached for the Nestle fruit yogurt (my substitute for ice cream) in a grocery shop fridge, I found the Cottage Foods Low-fat/ regular yogurts lined up right next to Neslte.
The type-face and the design is good-looking - not the typical Pakistani. (Seems to be a direct life from some American/European style design template). The line of products (cheese, pasteurized milk, yogurt, raita) nods to the growing trend of health foods.
I am glad to see a local health food brand come up. This will give Nestle Pakistan a run for their money.
Re: the website. I don't understand why the customers have to register for delivery through email. This still isn't how B2C business is done in Pakistan. There should be a 0900 number for home delivery registration and a toll-free 0800 for customer quesries and feedback. Cool interface, but I could do without the ultra-rapid scrolling on info pages.
3 comments:
Cottage Foods is a small and relatively unknown player and Nestle would'nt even bother to consider it as a competitor at this stage.
The real threat being faced by Nestle is from 1) Haleeb (constant increase in share for many periods in a raw), 2) Nirala foods successfuly launching their packaged milk brand in Punjab and 3) upcoming Engro Foods with strong plans to invest in dairy sector.
It would be better if little more research is done before drawing any conclusions on any industry. If a visit to neighbourhood grocery shop was enough to make conclusions, those companies would already have fired their brand managers and research agencies.
The keyword is "health food." This is a largely understated category. If Nestle would leave the plugs open, some smaller company, or a bunch of them could make a substantial move here. It's not about Nestle anyway, it's more about a smaller company giving direct competition. And they have just started up.
The smaller and med firms pose a serious challenge to the larger firms, of course over a period of time. We've seen that in the case of the tea market. Lipton ultimately had to revert back from the absolutely ghastly bland tasting tea that they had become, thanks to Tapal danedar's strong taste. The Lipton visuals today are all about rich, dark color and the aroma.
The health food category is particulary unattended. I see serious profits there.
As for research, I strongly belive in it. However, I have equal if not more faith in less tangible things like vision and gut feel.
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