Amalgam forays into health-oriented frozen food market

Leading seafood exporter Amalgam group is aiming at capturing a significant share of the fast growing frozen food market in India by introducing health-oriented frozen foods and rolling out exclusive retail outlets to market it

The group company Amalgam Frozen Foods will bring a range of frozen food products for health conscious people under its Buffet brand. “Our objective is to position Buffet brand as the country’s first health-oriented frozen food range,’’ said Abraham J Tharakan, chairman of the group. The country has been in the forefront of export of frozen range of Indian delicacies in the past several years with the consumers being mainly the Indians settled abroad. Tharakan said the domestic market too has been growing at a rate of 30 per cent annually. “Ice creams account for major share but other segments like vegetables, meat and seafood are also growing,” he said. He expects Amalgam Frozen Foods turnover to touch `100 crore in the next few years from the present `25 crores.

The company has started with gluten-free rice roti and will soon launch gluten-free parathas and chapathis. Other current products include organically grown green peas and sweet corn and coconut products from organically certified islands of Lakshadweep. The company is planning to increase its network of exclusive Buffet products outlets from the present 3 to 100, in the next three years. After Kerala, the company is looking at Chennai, Hyderabad, Bangalore, Bhubaneswar for setting up its outlets. Amalgam has been one of India’s major seafood exporters and aqua feed producers. Over the years it has laid focus on ingredients for both the food and feed industry and concentrated on the Indian domestic retail market with its frozen food brands. The company was the initial promoter of the brands like Sumeru and Keya and the original promoter of India’s first cold chain logistics company Snowman.