Lever heating up India's soup battle

According to its Knorr Annapurna division, the company "is creating a new category of liquid snacks for break times for busy adults either at home or at work".

Soupy Snax, an instant mix power added to hot water, features four flavours -Tomato Tease, Spicy Veg, Chicken Punch and Peppery Chicken.

Hindustan Lever already markets a range of soup mixes under the Knorr Annapurna brand, but it is trying to position Soupy Snax as a break-time snack, not a meal accompaniment. The snack line is priced at Rs5 per 14.5- gm sachet. Apart from the usual sampling and mass media advertising (television, internet and radio) planned, Hindustan Lever will also focus on marketing the new brand to office workers.

While the brand is positioning itself as a snack and not soup, there will be competition from Nestle's Maggi, which offers instant soup mixes, priced at Rs3 for a five- gm sachet. The soup snack segment is currently a small market (estimated at around 500 tonnes or US$6.2 million), market observers believe the segment has strong growth potential.

Hindustan Lever has launched other products in the snacks category before, but without noticeable success: it withdrew an instant-rice product called rice@ease, then relaunched it as 4 O'clock Tiffin. Industry observers said the product had yet to pick up steam, but a Hindustan Lever spokesperson said: "A focused strategy for promoting the brand has been devised. Super markets, shopping malls and large outlets targeted under this strategy."