April 5, 2013: Tea Board as part of the initiative to promote tea as common man’s drink will revive its ‘chai piyo, mast jiyo’ campaign which it launched in 2006 and provide financial assistance of Rs.12 lakh to companies who would like to set outlets in the rural areas. This move of Tea Board will surely help in setting up tea parlours and lounges in rural parts of India and to create a better rural connect for the beverage where youth in rural areas are becoming more soft drink savvy.
Tea Board has kept aside Rs.25 crore for the rural promotion scheme and they are all already in the process of preparing a draft and submit it to the planning commission. Tea companies like Wagh Bakri Group has already started opening tea lounges in places like Jaipur, Aurangabad and Mumbai. Though they are doing well these companies believe that out of home consumption will be the key driver for growth in rural India. Wagh Bakri is trying to come out with a out of home strategy so as to increase its sales in rural areas.
As per the proposal prepared by Tea Board for Planning Commission, food will also be sold through the rural tea parlours. If the tea companies have to really make a connect with the youth who are more on to drinking soft drinks, then they have a task cut out to come with product innovations focusing on new formats like ice tea. And unless they do this strategy and focus on out of home consumption, it really remains to be seen if the initiative of Tea Board to promote tea as common man’s drink will take off.
