Empee Distilleries in high spirits

Chennai: Since foreign brands started occupying a prominent place in the shelves of India's wine shops, liquor aficionados now have a wide and rich variety to choose from. With quantitative restrictions now been lifted, the trend is expected to kindle the competitive fires further. To counter the competition, domestic players are now forced to brew new offerings for their loyal customers.

One such company that is now working overnight to meet its consumer demands with a slew of new brands and extensions is the Chennai-based Empee Distilleries. The flagship company of the Rs 600-crore Empee group, Empee Distilleries has recently introduced four new brands as its millennium range - Marco Polo Pilsner Beer, Empee's Napoleon SOP Brandy, John Peter Whisky and Marco Polo XXX Rum.

The company is also in the process of launching its new Empee Bar range that includes whisky, brandy, rum and gin. “We will soon launch our white spirits,“ says executive director Philip A B Sargunar. He says his company is in the process of perfecting two white spirits, which may be launched before this Christmas.

While the company's Napoleon brand brandy commands nearly 60 per cent of the Tamil Nadu market (a predominant brandy market), Empee Distilleries is not a big force to reckon in the beer, rum and whisky segments. In addition, the brand loyalty, which existed here till 1999 among drinkers, started to vanish with the entry of new foreign brands. It is this quandary that Empee Distilleries is trying to break with new launches and a Rs 2-crore promotion spend.

The company's Marco Polo Pilsner beer will join other beer brands like Marco Polo Super Strong and Marco Polo Premium Lager. The other brands are Marco Polo Whisky, McLene Fine Brandy, McLene Rum and Marco Polo Dry Gin. Apart from this, in collaboration with Brihans Maharashtra Sugar Syndicate, Empee Distilleries markets Brihans Napolean Brandy and Brihans Premium Whisky.

A Tamil Nadu-centric player, Empee Distilleries plans to penetrate the southern market in a deeper way. It is building its second brewery in Kerala (capacity: 1.5 lakh cases per month) and expanding its Tamil Nadu brewery to 5.3 lakh cases per month, from 3.6 cases per month.

In addition to its distilleries in Chennai and Palakkad (Kerala), the company has entered into bottling arrangements in Pondicherry, Andhra Pradesh and Punjab to take its brands to the national level, says Sargunar. “We currently earn Rs 24 crore and Rs 13 crore per month selling IMFL and beer respectively. These figures are expected to go up after the new launches - we expect to clock a 35-per cent growth as against the industry growth of 15 per cent.“

The company is laying a great emphasis on the aggressive and premium-pricing strategy. Its John Peter Whisky is priced at Rs.270 per bottle, as against McDowell's Rs 322. Marco Polo XXX Rum is priced at Rs 175 per bottle, as against the leading brand Old Monk's Rs 185.

The company has priced its Pilsner beer at a premium of Rs 45 per bottle, as against the market leader Kingfisher's price of Rs 42. “We have done [the pricing] consciously. Consumers can now pay less for a better quality,“ says Sargunar.