Indian food brand Patak's is taking on the takeaway with a new range of premium cooking sauces targeted at a younger market looking to save money by eating in.
The eight-strong Meena range of sauces and accompaniments, which feaures the new badge Patak's Superior, aims to attract young affluent consumers and offer them an authentic but cheaper alternative to restaurant food.
"There are 4.7 million consumers who eat Indian food out of the home at least once a month but never cook it in the comfort of their own homes," said Peter Baxendell, marketing and business development director of Patak's owner AB World Foods, a division of ABF. "We are offering consumers the quality they'd expect in a restaurant in products they can enjoy at home."
He added that if half of those untapped consumers started cooking Indian dishes at home, the glass jar market could grow by £13m.
The new range is the first extension to the Patak's brand since the acquisition of the privately owned company by ABF last year.
It bears the name of the founder's daughter-in-law, Meena Patak, with each sauce featuring stories from her travels across India.
Patak's said it hoped that a move by consumers to cut down on eating out as a result of the credit crunch would mean people would buy into premium ranges to cook themselves.
The range of cooking sauces will be in stores from the end of June and features creamy korma, spicy jalfrezi, aromatic balti and tikka masala flavours. The accompaniments are cool mint maita, spicy onion & tomato relish, sweet lime pickle and a new mango chutney.
Indian sauces have come under pressure from the Oriental and Italian categories in recent years, with the latter two exceeding overall category growth, while Indian fell short.
However, Patak's is growing ahead of the market with sales up 8.7% to £41.5m for the year ending 21 April 2008.
Patak's pulled out of the frozen food category in February after poor sales of frozen ready meals.
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