Date:21/02/2008 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2008/02/21/stories/2008022151662100.htm

Business

Choice group plans big foray into convenience food sector

K. Venkiteswaran

The group has plans to add more retail chains

KOCHI: The Kochi-based Choice group is set to enter the convenience food sector in a big way by the end of the year, Jose Thomas, managing director of Choice Trading Corporation, told a press conference here on Monday night.

He said that the “Tastee Choice Meal Kit” priced at $7 was making waves in the western supermarkets and the company sold over three million packs of “heat and eat” meal kits in the United States alone last year.

The group would launch the product in Maharashtra and slowly spread to other parts of the country including Delhi, Bangalore, Chennai and Kochi.

The vision behind the “heat and eat” meal kit was to give the consumer the option of convenience, freshness and great taste at their homes, he said.

“Tastee Choice” received tremendous response from customers in the U.S. and was now ranked second in this sector in that country, he claimed.

The product was being sold through some of the leading department stores in the U.S., he said.

“Tastee Choice is currently the only Indian brand that is sold in the retail market in the U.S. and that too, with ‘Product of India’ stamped on the front panel of the pack.

The group has plans to add further retail chains to the customer list. Registration of one more brand, Malabar, is at an advanced stage. A second brand is a strategic need for selling to competing buyers, adds the release.

The 50-year-old Choice group, which is also into seafood and real estate businesses, is planning to build south India’s tallest building having over 40 storeys at Thripunithura, Mr. Jose Thomas added.