Case Study of Haldiram Group

Background

In 1937, Ganga Bishen Agarwal, (popularly known as Haldiram), opened a small sweet shop in Bikaner, a small district in Rajasthan. Bikaner had a large number of sweet shops selling sweets as well as namkeens.

'Bhujia sev,' a salty snack prepared by Ganga Bishen, was very popular among the residents of Bikaner and was also purchased by tourists coming to Bikaner.

In 1941, the name 'Haldiram's Bhujiawala' was used for the first time.

Case Details

Haldiram's had many 'firsts' to its credit. It was the first company in India to brand 'namkeens³'. The group also pioneered new ways of packaging namkeens. Its packaging techniques increased the shelf life of namkeens from less than a week to more than six months.

It was also one of the first companies in India to open a restaurant in New Delhi offering traditional Indian snack food items such as "panipuri," "chatpapri," and so on, which catered to the needs of hygiene conscious non-resident Indians and other foreign customers.

Since the very beginning, the brand 'Haldiram's' had been renowned for its quality products. The company employed the best available technology in all its manufacturing facilities in India.

Given the increasing popularity of Haldiram's products, the group planned to expand its operations. However, some analysts felt that Haldiram's still had to overcome some hurdles. The company faced tough competition not only from sweets and snack food vendors in the unorganized market but also from domestic and international competitors like SM Foods, Bakeman's Industries Ltd, Frito Lay India Ltd.(Frito Lay) and Britannia Industries Ltd. Moreover, the group had to overcome internal problems as well. In the early 1990s, because of the conflict within the Agarwals family, Haldiram's witnessed an informal split between its three units as they started operating separately offering similar products and sharing the same brand name.

The competition in the ready-to-eat snack foods market in India was intensifying. Frito Lay India Ltd. (Frito Lay), one of Haldiram's major competitors, was expanding its market share. Instead of directly competing with the market leader Haldiram's, the company launched innovative products in the market and backed them with heavy publicity.

ITC has also come up withdifferent varieties of ready to eat Snacks. Where as it launched the ready-eat-snacks with a price of as low as Rs.10.

Questions:

1-      What is  the significance of the different elements of the marketing mix in building a leading brand in the snacks food industry in India.

2-      What Marketing Mix Haldiram must use to uniquely position its brands?