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HLL, Tata Tea efforts to tap flavoured tea market

By Our Staff Reporter

KOLKATA OCT. 15. Set to exploit the so far untapped flavoured tea market in the country, Hindustan Lever (HLL) and Tata Tea have convinced the Indian Tea Association to persuade the Centre to allow use of nature identical (NI) flavours in black tea. The proposal was supported by all other leading tea manufacturers in the country.

Nature identical flavouring substances are chemically identical to molecular species available in nature and are chemically synthesised. Their usage is permitted in most of the developed markets like the U.S., U.K. and other European countries under proper label declaration. Confirming the development, Tea Board chairman Mr. N. K. Das told The Hindu that the Board had already communicated to the prevention of food adulteration (PFA) authorities to allow the same in the domestic market.

Admitting that they were pursuing the case for nature identical flavours, Tata Tea and HLL officials said that but for the imminent cost advantage over natural flavours, use of NI (and artificial) flavours were favoured mainly because of "its consistency of purity and flavour profile" and `longer shelf life'. But for the generally inconsistent profile, natural flavours have a much lower shelf life and therefore creates a major marketing problem for flavoured tea.

Allaying fears, expressed by a section of the industry, that the PFA norms if relaxed might open the floodgate of synthetically flavoured low quality teas eating into the market share of high quality high value aromatic teas, a HLL spokesman said that "black tea contains over 400 flavour chemicals and to precisely replicate that would be next to impossible. It would also be prohibitively expensive and commercially unviable''.

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