Govt brews global branding plans for tea industry

The Union commerce ministry has turned to four wise men in the tea industry to secure the identity of Indian tea across the world markets. Tea industry hotshots like Aditya Khaitan of McLeod Russel, Tata Tea's Sangeeta Talwar, Hindustan Unilever's Sanjiv Chatterjee and Bharat Arya of JV Gokal will be part of a core committee that will formulate a global branding strategy to market Indian teas worldwide. What's more, iconic adman Piyush Pandey, who used to be a tea taster in Kolkata many moons ago before he joined the advertising industry in 1982, will hand-hold this elite panel to ensure teas of other origins don't masquerade as Indian tea in overseas locations.

Significantly, the commerce ministry plans to create an umbrella brand for Indian tea under which all categories will be exported across world markets. While the umbrella brand concept is yet to crystallise fully, several options are being tossed. For instance, all `Made in India teas' could have a single uniform logo along the lines of famous `lion logo' that distinguish Sri Lankan teas marketed worldwide.

When contacted, a senior Tea Board official told ET: "Union minister of state for commerce Jyotiraditya Scindia had called a meeting to explore ways to establish Indian tea as a strong brand in the world market. There was a brainstorming session, which was attended by all stakeholders of the industry, following which the decision to create a four-member committee was taken."

Mr Scindia had recently indicated in Kolkata that India can emerge as a brand for commodities like tea in the world market. He had also emphasised that the tea sector needed to focus on value-added products like tea bags to be competitive overseas.

He added that there was a need to integrate the back-end and front-end of the tea industry. "The front-end comprises packeteers and marketers while producers form the back-end. There is no synergy between them," Scindia had said at a recent chamber interaction.

From that perspective, the composition of the four-member panel aims to bring powerful synergies to the table. While Aditya Khaitan is managing director of world's largest tea producing company, Sangeeta Talwar is executive director of Tata Tea. Sanjiv Chatterjee, in turn, is GM (TEC & F&B Exports) at HUL while Bharat Arya, is CEO of J V Gokal, which represents packeteers and marketers of Indian tea industry.

Incidentally, between January and September 2009, India exported 131.22 million kg of tea against 150.25 million kg in 2008. But even though the volumes are less, the unit price realisation has increased to Rs 135.42 per kg compared to Rs 111.93 per kg in 2008.