Lotte to go into snacks segment; To invest USD three hundred million in the next five years in India
South Korean multinational Lotte will expand its merchandise past ice cream and choco pie as it plans to go into the snack segment riding on the popularity of k-food and k-pop in india, said a top business enterprise official on Thursday.
Lotte, which opened an ice cream manufacturing facility in pune for its Havmor business, has plans to release 'Pepero', its well-known chocolate-lined biscuit stick, said Lotte Wellfood CEO Paul Yi.
"It's miles the primary branded confectionery snack in Korea, and we can be launching and introducing that to the indian customers in July of this yr, producing it for the first time outside of Korea in our haryana plant," he stated.
Lotte presently produces the snack cake 'choco pie' in India. Lotte Confectionery obtained Havmor Ice in 2017.
Whilst asked whether Lotte Wellfood might introduce new merchandise and enter into new segments, Yi said: "We will explore different classes, which include snacks." Lotte Wellfood Co, formerly referred to as Lotte Confectionery, is a South Korean confectionery multinational centered in Seoul, South Korea, having 8 overseas subsidiaries and manufacturing factories at 21 locations.
It has invested Rs 500 crore at its new pune plant for Havmor ice cream, which has an annual manufacturing ability of fifty million litres and is expandable up to a hundred million litres in subsequent years. It is designed to cater to the surging demand for ice cream, mainly at some stage in the extreme summer season in the USA.
In step with Yi, India's ice cream market is small in comparison to different nations; however, it has "fantastic possibility" as it scales up.
Upon being requested approximately the next segment of funding in india, Yi stated, "we've got a fundamental, foundational three to five-12-month roadmap, and that three to five-12-month roadmap presently requires an additional USD 300 million of potential and supply chain enlargement endeavors.
"Now, as we revisit the ones plans, it will evolve, and my wager is it's going to handiest cross up," he added.
This new plant will even help Lotte in expanding the reach of Havmor ice cream and to "cross down as some distance south as Bengaluru and Chennai. Havmor is expanding past gujarat and already has a presence in many elements of the usa, Yi added.
Except, Lotte is also searching for export capacity from this plant, catering to neighboring regions.
"We've plans to export to the center East, and sincerely, Africa is an opportunity," he stated.
However, he additionally brought that though export from india is part of Lotte Wellfood, the focal point would be the indian market, which has massive capacity.
Currently, Havmor's sales are approximately USD 200 million and have approximately 5 in line with cent share of India's branded ice cream marketplace.
In international locations like china, the ice cream market length is USD 23 billion, expects it to evolve within the coming years and has "outstanding opportunity".
"As the indian consumer base expands and evolves, it'll in reality cross in the direction of the china aspect. So it is going to be top for the complete category. However, really, as we lead innovation, creation, and connection to the indian consumers with innovation... We feel like we have a fantastic opportunity," he said.
In india, Lotte Wellfood had in august 2024 announced the merger of its companies -- Lotte india and Havmor ice cream -- into one entity.
Regarding the requested improvement, Paul stated, "We're on the agenda to finish, optimistically by the end of the first region, the first quarter of this year, which is March."
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