Sumeru Foods aims at 25% growth in exports

Sumeru, a frozen foods brand based out of Kochi, is targeting 25% growth in exports during the current fiscal to increase its profits.

Exports contribute 10% of the company’s business and Sumeru is currently exporting to the US, NZ, Africa, Japan, Singapore, Fiji and Mauritius, with the US being the company’s largest market.

Innovative Foods Limited (IFL), which sells under the brand name Sumeru, is in the business of manufacturing and marketing various types of ready-to-eat vegetarian, non-vegetarian food items since 1989.

The company, this year, plans to focus on exports for growth, innovative product launches and efficiency in distribution, says its CEO Mithun Appaiah.

Appaiah says, “We have been in the export business for the last 10 years, but we have started focusing more on the segment. We thought there’s a large global market that consumes Indian frozen food, so that’s an interesting category to build on.”

Paranthas do very well in the US, he adds, mentioning that Sumeru is the leader with a 50-60% share in the frozen parantha market. “We have also launched healthy variants of paranthas like methi parantha, multi-grain parantha and beet-root parantha.” They have also recently launched breakfast meals like idli-sambaar in the export market. Along with the paranthas, grated coconut is also one of the brand’s star products in the export segment.

We are also one of the key suppliers to national and international QSR chains. The tie-ups contribute to 20% of the business.

Innovation

Appaiah says Research and Development are very crucial to the company. Sumeru has an R&D lab in Kochi and continues to launch differentiated products every now and then.

Sumeru’s latest product, frozen momos, was launched in August. “We are the first national player doing it. The concern with street momos is hygiene. We have addressed that issue and tried to fix it to ensure quality and hygiene while keeping the taste.”

“We have a very serious process and structure running in our R&D department. We have very senior people running R&D. The team consists of two senior chefs, assistants, head of R&D among others. Any given time, there are at least 50 products that are being worked on.”

The ‘unhealthy’ conviction

The Founder believes that there’s a misconception around frozen food that it’s unhealthy. The brand is trying to convince its consumers otherwise. Besides not adding any preservatives and colours, Sumeru uses advanced Individual Quick Freezing (IQF) technology. The process helps to deactivate the enzymes in the food.

The raw materials, says the founder are procured from Food Safety Management System (FSMS) certified companies and produced as per Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point (HACCP) norms in the Foundation Food Safety System Certification (FSSC 22000) certified factories.

“The issue is nobody talks about it and people aren’t informed. From our end, we are trying to communicate this through our digital communication and our new packs, which come with a label that says ‘freshly frozen’ or ‘goodness of frozen’. It’s not going to be an immediate change but somebody has to start,” Appaiah added.