Fat's In The Fire

Most of HLL’S big brands, including Feast, Max and Cornetto, are made from vegetable fat and not milk. That’s why it has had to call them "frozen dessert", not "icecream " . In fact, Mother Dairy and Vadilal — which use costly milk fat— have been lobbying with the food processing ministry, claiming that frozen desserts lack nutritional value yet help makers rake in the moolah because of the low price of vegetable oil.

Mother Dairy, a subsidiary of the National Dairy Development Board with a 45 per cent share of the market in north India, has already shot off a letter to the ministry,  claiming that "it would be ethically wrong to use the word icecream... to define a clearly  imitation product which could misguide and deceive the consumers into believing it to be a genuine product". "The government   needs to do a rethink. Otherwise, the entire concept of nutrition associated with ice-creams will undergo a seachange because Kwality Wall’s is the market leader," rues N.A. Sheikh, general manager in charge of  Mother Dairy ’s icecream operations.

Kwality Wall’s refuses to buy the argument.  "I don’t see any reason for this tension. We are not confined to vegetable oil-based   icecreams," says G.D. Chaudhary, director, Kwality. H L L also has milk fat-based products like vanilla and strawberry, he says, which are doing well. But others differ. Some  marketers Outlook spoke to argue that the most popular Kwality Wall’s brands are vegetable oil-based. "HLL pushes the frozen desserts f rom Wall ’s (a Unilever brand) much more than the milk-based stuff from Kwality. What has happened to the milk-based Dollops, which Lever bought from Cadbury’s? Or Milkfood, the other brand it bought?" asks an analyst.

"Worldwide, icecream is recognised as a product made exclusively from milk fat. Similar imitation products (like frozen dessert) has been made by replacing milk with cheap vegetable fat in countries like the US. But it’s not called icecream. For example, in the US, it’s called mellorine," says Sheikh. Sheikh is supported by Pradip Chaudhury, general manager, Baskin Robbins, the US-based chain which runs 135 icecream parlours across India. "We are expensive because our icecreams contain a thick base of cream and milk fat. Icecreams can only be the best experience for money when it has nutritional and health value," he says. Agrees Samir Kukreja of Nirula’s , one of the country’s largest fast-food chain:

"Only a careful observation will help a customer understand the difference. An average buyer won’t know the difference . "

Nutrition or no nutrition, observers feel  HLL will still rule the roost thanks to its distribution power. Take Delhi. Kwality Wall’s is sold through more than 2,500 carts and an estimated 10,000 restaurants and shops.Mother Dairy has only 700 carts and 1,100 outlets. And backing up the distribution network is the multicrore campaign from India’s highest ad spender, which makes the icecream battle relatively one-sided. "

We had to keep the volumes of Kwality Wall’s in mind when we planned our advertising  focus for Mother Dairy. Sensing Wall’s was targeting the youth, we thought of zeroing on the family segment and simultaneously counter Kwality with quality," says Prabir Purakayastha, president, Interact Vision, which handles the Mother Dairy account. But Kwality’s Chaudhary refuses to buy the nutrition theory : "All this talk is rubbish. Our basic idea is to market a world-class product in India.  We may be the market leader but please understand it’s no cakewalk in a country where social mobility of ice creams remains inhibited."

He should know. Not long ago, children— and even adults — across the country had one name in mind when they had to pick up an icecream : Kwality. But with more and more domestic and global brands coming in— some like Blue Bunny being directly imported from the US by paying a huge 65 per cent duty— the industry is likely to witness some fierce competition in the summer of ’99. What remains to be seen is how many customers will look at both the price and quality.