Can Apples Be Cultivated in Karnataka?

There is a need to explore the possibilities of growing apples in Karnataka, according to Chiranjit Parmar, horticultural scientist from Himachal Pradesh.

Addressing a group of farmers on the ‘possibilities of cultivating apples in Karnataka’, he said he had sent 300 plants to Karnataka in January 2011, and they were planted in 18 different locations in the State.

He said some plants progressed well, grew incessantly and did not shed leaves during December- January when apple trees become leafless. Some plants have started flowering at some locations during the second year of their orchard life.

Observation of the plant growth trend indicates that there is a possibility of cultivating apple in Karnataka, he said.

“This, however, is the beginning, and the idea needs further testing on a larger scale,” Parmar said.

Speaking on the sidelines of the meeting, K. Krishna Shetty, a farmer from Dakshina Kannada district in Karnataka, said he led the initiative to cultivate apples on a trial basis two years ago.

In 2011, he planted 18 saplings. Of them, two survived. The failure of other saplings is because he could not concentrate much on their growth. However, he planted 20 saplings in 2012. Of them, two died. This time, he spent more time on those plants, Shetty said. 

Stating that he is planning to plant 50 plants in his farm this year, he said he would grow them on a trial basis. He is not expecting any commercial benefits out of this cultivation.“I will absorb the failures, if any,” he said. Parmar said two-year-old plants of Tumkur-based farmer Gangadhara Murthy are showing good growth. Three of the plants have shown the signs of bearing fruits, he said. 

Both Parmar and Shetty said that the idea of apple cultivation in Karnataka needs further studies. The farmers, who are cultivating them, are doing it out of interest and not for commercial purpose, they added.

Source: FKCCI

Infinitea: Awesome Tea Parlour

Awesome place for tea lover. I loved the huge range of tea flavours they offer both in the hot as well as the cold ones.

You can tell from my profile pic that I love this place. It was taken at Infinitea :) I had come here several times mainly with friends whom I pulled along. I did come by later with my family and they loved the tea variety too.  

The interiors are nice, subtle with posters relating to tea from the world over. Glass tables have an wood underside with some tea-sayings. Coasters have quotes by famous men on tea.The place smells of tea, but its not just a tea place. They have awesome food to go with it. Food is continental and variety of options with favourites like Gado Gado salad, Chicken a la Kiev, waffles with maple syrup, scrambled eggs on toast. 

Perfect Veggie Delight In Bangalore

Every time I visit Indiranagar 100 feet road in Bangalore, I make sure to visit this place gastronomically delightful place. Not only is the ambience good and there is consistency in the flavours. Quantity is perfect. Service is ok. Their Pizzas are very authentic. The best part is they customise your orders to Jain variety if need be. I keep coming back for more.

The fact that I'm not a vegetarian, has not stopped me from recommending Little Italy to others. Its pure veg, but it can beat any Italian non-veg restaurant hands down specially the pizza's and pasta's. Love the food and their b-day or a anniversary specials. However, the food is quite expensive and the alcohol is even dearer. But then its worth visiting for special occasions or visiting the city ones in a while. You won’t be disappointed.  

Entry of New Brands Pep-up Indian Ice Cream Market

Ice cream was amongst the fastest-growing product categories in packaged foods in 2012. As a result, several regional players started expanding in 2012. Mother Dairy Fruit and Vegetable, which until now ruled Delhi’s market, was planning to enter the markets in Mumbai, Bangalore and Chennai in 2012. 

Vadilal Industries – a leading player in Gujarat and Rajasthan – was expanding its operations in the northern part of the country. Hatsun Agro – a leading player in South India – was also planning to expand in western regions. A large part of this expansion is going to happen through consumer foodservice outlets. National and regional players alike have ice cream parlours. For instance, Vadilal Industries’ parlours are called Happinezz. Hatsun Agro’s ice cream parlours are called Ibaco. 

Regional manufacturers were aiming to expand into other markets by opening more of such outlets in 2012.

COMPETITIVE LANDSCAPE: Gujarat Co-operative Milk Marketing Federation is expected to lead value sales in ice cream with a share of 31% in 2012. This is because its products were economically priced and were widely available. Availability of raw material was not a concern due to its close relationships with milk farmers. 

Moreover, the company already has a cold chain network, which is crucial for this business. Many regional players were unable to expand their operations beyond a particular area because investment in cold storage is huge and its management requires expertise. 

Hindustan Unilever through its brand Kwality Wall’s was the second largest player with an expected value share of 20% in 2012. The company’s brand has enjoyed considerable brand equity in metros for the past two decades.

PROSPECTS: A number of regional manufacturers are aiming at gaining national footprint over the forecast period. Most of them are looking at expanding in metro cities like Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Chennai, Hyderabad and Kolkata. This shows that major urban centres still have high scope for growth. On the other hand, this also shows that competition in these areas is going to intensify. The share of consumer foodservice outlets in the total distribution is poised to grow. 

Ice cream is mostly an impulse-based product in India. Its consumption is growing despite sharp rises in prices. This means that Indian consumers are willing to pay extra for indulgence and shows the potential for launches of premium ice cream brands going forward.

Source: Euromonitor 

Energy Drinks And Juices On Cloud 9 In India?

In the recent years, India has been observing a sweeping shift in consumption of non-alcoholic drinks, like energy drinks and juices. The growing middle class that currently is around 350 million, rising urbanization and increase in purchasing parity are some of the primary reasons, prompting this change.

As per companies and markets, publishers of global market research reports and analysts, in its recently released report informed that Indian non-alcoholic drinks market which in 2008 stood around Rs 216 billion is projected to grow almost by 15% during 2009-2012. The research report sheds light on different factors that drive the growth of non-alcoholic drinks market in India.

Furthermore, rising health consciousness among the masses has increased the popularity of these non-alcoholic drinks. And as expected, cola sales have been plummeting due to rising health issues and this seems to have boosted the growth of country’s non-carbonated drinks like energy drinks and juices.

As per the segment level analysis, fruit/vegetable juice market would witness the highest growth around 30 percent in value terms in 2009-2012, followed by energy drinks segment. In these changing times, a greater awareness towards health beverages and energy drinks is being witnessed and the best part being people don’t mind coughing up a little more for them. Indian companies are undoubtedly cashing in on the health and wellness understanding/awareness among the masses by launching products that meet their requirements.

The research report covers energy drinks, carbonated drinks, fruit/vegetable drinks, bottled water, tea, coffee and coffee. 

Subway: Low Calories n Good Value For Money

Subway,  the international chain has come a long way ever since they came to India in 2001. Over the past 12 13 years, the distinctive Subway Sandwich logo has sprung up on high streets in cities across the subcontinent. Youth in India have warmed to the image of the American chain, and made it one of their favorite places to swarm to, and hang out in. 

The media in India has been debating the claim that eating Subway Sandwiches is good for maintaining or even reducing weight. This puts Subway in a league apart, from other calories highloaders like McDonald's and Burger King. The debate, not officially resolved in India at least, originates from the story of Indiana University (USA) student Jared Fogle.

Reports indicate that Fogle, who once weighed a monstrous 435 pounds, credits a strict Subway diet for helping him shed his enormous bulk. Fogle had experimented with other diets for years, to no avail, before he happened upon a nutritional information brochure at a Subway outlet, which mentioned how you could lose weight by eating two subway sandwiches that contained less than 6 gm of fat daily. How true! I too tries out their range of sandwiches and found it low in calories and stuffed with a lot of greens and veggies, rich in anti-oxidants. I too have shed some weight however cannot attribute it totally to the Subway  sandwiches.

The ambience at Subway outlets are neat, the seats are well spaced out, just the perfect place to kick back and rest a while and have your lunch or a small snack and move on. However, the sandwiches don't come cheap...but offer a good value for your money.

Indian F&B Industry Likely To Touch $300b By 2015

The Indian food and beverage industry (not including alcoholic beverages) was valued at approximately $200 billion in the year 2007, according to a FICCI-Technopak study, and is expected to grow to $300 billion by 2015. Of course, not all of this produce goes in for processing, and the food processing industry is therefore estimated at a smaller $70 billion. Beverages, primarily packaged tea and coffee, milk-based packaged drinks, carbonated drinks and fruit-based drinks account for a small proportion of the industry, a little more than $6 billion. 

The food and beverage industry is considered a priority sector by the government, since it has potential for generating employment in both urban and rural areas. According to the India Brand Equity Foundation (IBEF), the industry already employs over 1.6 million workers directly, besides its impact on other sectors such as agriculture, logistics and retailing. 

The food and beverage industry covers many sectors, and the Ministry of Food Processing has broadly divided into the following areas: Dairy processing, Fruits & Vegetable processing, Grain processing, Fish, meat & poultry processing and lastly, Packaged goods such as beverages, snacks, bakery products, convenience/ready-to-cook foods. Currently, many units in the food processing industry work in the unorganised sector, but the share of organised industry is expected to grow, gradually. The packaged food, industry is expected to be a significant contributor to this growth. The per capita consumption of packaged foods in India is expected to rise with the increase in disposable incomes. Beverages, in particular, is a fast-growing segment, with an annual growth rate of over 25 percent currently. 

Even in areas such as dairy processing, meat & poultry processing or fruit & vegetable processing, the opening up of export markets as well as rising awareness on hygiene domestically is moving industries to adopt higher standards, including a professional and trained workforce. The Food Safety Act, 2006, while not completely implemented, is also expected to raise industry standards. 

Industry Evolution and Trends

Until the early 90s, the Indian food industry consisted largely of small scale units working with low-end technology and involved in low-volume production, largely for the domestic market. The packaged food industry, which included a few organised players and made products like ketchup, jams, biscuits and instant noodles, had few brands and a low level of competition. With liberalization and the rise in urban middle-class incomes, there was an explosion of brands, as existing players expanded and new players entered the market.

Staple foods such as wheat, rice, pulses and cooking oil, which had till now, largely been sold on the loose, started being packaged for the first time, with some of them also getting branded. This was also the case with fish, meat and poultry products where consumers were now ready to pay for the convenience of produce that has been cleaned and was ready to use.

While branded products have made an entry into almost all categories, the Indian food industry is yet to undergo many changes. The food procurement chain from farm to factory is still inefficient, due to poor transportation facilities and lack of cold storage. Some companies have tried to address these issues by putting in place systems for contract farming and procurement from farmers in specific geographical areas so that investments in cold storage, warehousing and transportation facilities can be made. They also provide technical know-how to farmers for improving yields and produce quality. Unlike developed countries, highly processed, ready-to-eat/ready-to-cook foods still form a small market in India. With the rise of women in the workforce, this market is expected to grow.

India is a large exporter of food products such as grain, tea, fresh and dried vegetables; it is not yet however a major exporter of value-added products in the packaged food sector, although manufacturers have made a beginning by targeting large expatriate Indian communities in areas such as the Middle East and South East Asia. 

With more stringent safety norms and a greater share of the organised sector, this is expected to change. The Agricultural and Processed Food Products Export Development Authority (APEDA) has estimated that agricultural products and processed food exports from India to this region already account for about $ 3 billion, a figure that is expected to grow.

Currently, some of the major players in the Indian food industry are Hindustan Unilever Limited (beverages, staples, snack foods, condiments), ITC Ltd (staples, confectionery, snack foods), Parle Products Ltd (snack foods), Britannia India Ltd (snack foods), Nestle India Pvt. Ltd (Dairy, snack foods, chocolate), Haldirams (Snack foods) and GCMMF-Amul (Dairy, beverages). While the domestic market is currently the focus for most manufacturers, this may change in the future. Haldirams, for instance has begun an ambitious expansion plan, including a manufacturing plant in the UK.

Career Options in the Food & Beverage Industry

Since the food & beverage industry includes both basic and value-added food processing, there are a wide range of jobs available. In the primary food processing industry, the roles may involve close interaction with the farm end of the food chain.

 At the value-added food processing industry, whereas, the focus would be greater on production and process technology as well as Research & Development (R&D). Broadly, the key roles in this industry could be classified as agriculture-related, production & process related, Testing, Safety & Quality Control, Health & nutrition related, R&D and Sales and Marketing. These are besides the general functions such as Finance, Administration and Supply Chain.

For those working at the farm end of the spectrum, graduate or post-graduate degrees in agriculture would be a requirement, although depending on the nature of the role, those from related fields such as botany or chemistry would also be considered. Post-graduates in Food Technology (and related areas) would be considered for roles in testing, safety and quality control areas, as also for R&D. 

Graduates in chemistry may also be considered for lab-related positions, if they have a keen interest in working in the food industry. Senior-level positions in R&D would normally call for a doctorate in areas relevant to the industry. Industries such as Dairy may also look for degrees in dairy technology.

Manufacturers in the food industry, increasingly, have teams that focus on the health and nutrition aspect of their products, which calls for candidates with a post-graduate degree in nutrition, dietetics or even a degree in medicine.

For roles in production or process R&D, engineers, usually with a mechanical engineering degree would be considered. Besides these, there are also short-term courses in areas such as food packaging, quality & safety issues, IPR issues, microbiological analysis etc which may help those with a graduate degree to upgrade their skills and enter the food industry.

Papa John's: Great Value For Money

I get this craving for really rich and fattening pizza once a month and I head off to papa john's for a hefty meal of butter garlic breadsticks, chicken wings and an all meats pizza! I devour all of it with generous amounts of garlic butter dip and jug fulls of iced tea! 

My first visit was to the outlet in Sector 35 in Chandigarh and it was a great experience and continued to visit the outlet several times. Later when I shifted to Bangalore, I continued to avail the great taste at the outlet here.

Fantastic service, quick on their heels servers, always smiling, corrects you if you order extra, fun place to hang out, the sofas are absolutely comfy and lighting perfect!

Keep up the good job!

Goli Vada Pav Makes Inroads into Indian Heartland

The next time you step into a Goli Vada Pav outlet and bite into a vada pav, remember that the company is the brainchild of 42-year-old B.Com graduate S. Venkatesh.

He had a successful career in corporate financing, which he got into after graduating from Mumbai University, including his own corporate advisory firm.

Venkatesh says he always wanted to get into the food business. Should he start a venture that sells idli and dosa, though typically South Indian but quite popular across regions, or should he sell vada pav, which was typical to Mumbai, where he lived?

Walking with a vada pav in hand one day in Mumbai, he noticed a banner for McDonald’s. It struck him then that the vada pav sold on Mumbai’s footpath and a burger sold by a glitzy McDonald’s outlet had a lot in common.

He lists them – both are fast food, to be eaten on the move, a filling between bun or a ‘pav’. More importantly, vada pav does not require side dishes to eat it with or a plate and spoon to eat from. It can be wrapped in a piece of paper and you can munch away at it even as you are walking or sitting in a bus or an autorickshaw.

This meant that it will not require as much space as an outlet that serves idli and dosa. Real estate being prohibitively expensive in Mumbai, it was a no-brainer for Venkatesh. Vada pav won.

Thus came into being Goli Vada Pav in 2004, which Venkatesh funded with his savings. By this time, Venkatesh had wound down his corporate advisory firm. The initial investment was about Rs 40 lakh. It soon increased to Rs 1 crore as the business got under way. Goli Vada Pav is majority-owned by Venkatesh and his friend and co-founder Shivadas Menon.

The first outlet came up in Kalyan, a suburb of Mumbai. It did roaring business and very soon there were a handful of outlets. But, things did not go the way Venkatesh expected. Problems cropped up. He was confident of what he was doing. He persevered. The venture got funded.

They planned a large-scale expansion. Disaster struck and that expansion had to be abandoned.

Venkatesh says he was determined not to give up and hence worked on overcoming the problems. It worked. What he thought was essentially popular only in Mumbai suddenly found a market outside the country’s commercial capital. Someone offered to start an outlet in Nashik. One store led to another and very soon Goli Vada Pav found itself outside Maharashtra. Now it has 150 stores, a majority of them run by franchisees. Venkatesh hopes to have a pan-India footprint. It sells about 75,000-100,000 vada pav a day.

What is Venkatesh’s message? Always pursue your dreams. If your idea is good, it will do well.

Source: thehindubusinessline

Indians Go Gaga Over Mad Over Donuts!

Young Turks is a one-stop shop for everything entrepreneurial. Hectic schedules, rising incomes and the fact that around 60% of Indian’s are under the age of 30 is creating a new appetite amongst consumers. As a result, sales of both western and local fast food chains are growing almost 28% a year.

Twenty-nine year old Lokesh Bharwani took the plunge into this growing market and brought America’s favourite food to India with his venture - Mad Over Donuts. So did Bharwani help indulge Indians with their sweet cravings?

If the thought of rich dark chocolate with almond bits on a bed of soft and fluffy dough has you are drooling, you have Bharwani to blame. A sweet tooth made Bharwani shift base from Singapore to India and set up Mad Over Donuts in 2008, India’s first donut chain. Bharwani began his affair with a stack during his student days in the US where he would binge on donuts for breakfast.

Bringing various ingredients together, Bharwani brought in a team of food science specialists who perfected the recipe for eggless donuts after a year of testing. From the making of the dough to the flattening to the hole being punched in to the baking - Mad Over Donuts’ live kitchen gives you the opportunity to witness the dough to donut making process upfront. With the majority of ingredients imported, what is it that makes customers go Mad Over Donuts?

Bharwani: The number one is the product. We have spent over a year and 100’s of R&D trails out of our laboratory in Singapore. So to get the doughnut to actually be that soft and melt in your mouth and that whole ‘love at first bite experience’ as our tagline says, I would say it is one of our key advantages. The second one is our connect with our customers. We really like to have everyone walk into our stores and really go Mad Over Donuts. We have a very strong connection with our customers.

We have over 300,000 fans on Facebook - that gives us a two way interaction about their experiences, about what they would want about the brand and we can therefore respond to that to actually make the brand what our consumers want it to be. So that strong connect as well as the product, we will take us ahead of any competitors that do come. Donuts are something which is so common place around the world and yet in India right now, I would still consider it a niche product. We would need a couple of other strong brands to actually come in to make donuts a little bit more of a staple part of peoples lifestyle as opposed to being a niche product as it is today.

Keeping this in mind, Bharwani has kept Mad Over Donuts pricing as appetizing is the items on its menu. From Rs 40 for a classic donut and Rs 50 for the others to Rs 200 for a box of six - Mad Over Donuts serves you over 25 varieties. 

Introducing new flavors regularly, Bharwani believes that donuts have just entered the Indian menu and will soon become popular in the fast food market.

Bharwani: We are seeing that donuts have a long history. It goes back into the 1920’s in the US and Europe. There is a lot of history behind the product and it is universally accepted. Whether it’s a kid, whether it’s an adult, people around the world, everyone seems to like donuts. Though it was not in an organised way over there, everyone used to go into neighborhood bakeries and there used to be a donut. So they are familiar with a round product or a round pastry. We are in three cities right now so the potential of growth is immense. India is a very large place, we very large market and we don’t see why the entire country will not be Mad Over Donuts very soon.

This doesn’t seem a distinct dream given that Mad Over Donuts has already sold over 10 million donuts since its inception. Bharwani and his team of 500 are now looking at adopting the franchise route to expand the business. In 2010, Bharwani divested 33.3% stake to the Mirah Group, a conglomerate with interest in hospitality and the food and beverage industry.

Bharwani: Towards the end of 2010, the Mirah Group took a strategic stake in Mad Over Donuts. Since then we basically tap resources and have grown quite extensively ever since we joined hands with them. They have the experience of running a lot of brands, they have experience of scaling up brands right across the country. Just getting the inputs, the experience and tapping on some of the resources is something in which we all work together to expand Mad Over Donuts. It does operate as a separate company and it is more of inputs and support as the company grows. That has helped that experience and that experience of growing brands internationally has certainly helped the expansion of Mad Over Donuts in the last couple of years.

But the presence across 35 stores in Delhi, Mumbai and Pune - Bharwani now wants to take his venture pan India and open 70 stores by next year. He is also extending his offering with cupcakes to be launched in May this year.

We hope you continue to serve up just dessert.

Source: moneycontrol.com

Is Green Smoothies Invading India?

Gee I never realised that i would miss my green smoothie as much as I did. It went something like this. Before we left for India I had to consider just how I would make a green smoothie without my Hi-Blend or my Vitamix super blender. We were going to be away for the whole month and I knew without any doubt that it would be difficult to survive without my Green Smoothie for all that time. First was how to replace the super blender to produce something that would resemble a Green Smoothie I also knew that I could Never achieve the level of creaminess of my regular smoothie but that was still an acceptable compromise. I did a test drive on various stick and personal blenders and finally settled on taking a powerful 400 watt stick blender and a seed grinder to pre-grind the seeds and nuts.

The smoothie package looked like this:

A pack each of almonds, cashews, macadamia, sunflower seeds, flax seeds, pumpkin seeds.
Barley green powder, raw cacao powder, hemp seed powder, and maca powder that I decanted into enough single smoothie packs for the anticipatednumber of smoothies that I could make.
A packet of dehydrated kale in case of emergency where I could not get any greens.
A sharp knife (had to remember to put it into the suitcase going into the hold otherwise it would be confiscated, just like another 2 pen knives that I forgot to transfer).

We stayed in Mumbai one night so breakfast was a milky tea and a rubbery parathas. The next breakfast was in Delhi where the selection for breakfast was sweet milky tea, porridge and milk, toast and butter or toast and jam. Mmmm, to eat or not to eat, that was the question. I chose the toast and jam and

tea.  I am a firm believer that the benefit or the detrimental effect of what we eat relates to our state of mind and intention, so, being wheat and dairy intolerant, I had the choice of focusing on the problems of the wheat bread and the dairy in the tea or to see it as great food that my body would lovingly accept to nourish me and remove the pangs of hunger. So, before taking the first bite, I waved my hands over the toast and said “Green Smoothie, Green Smoothie”. This was a bit like looking for a miracle similar to Aladdin saying A b r a c a d a b r a!

Our next breakfast offering was a simple Indian breakfast of wheat porridge, buffalo milk, brown sugar, toast, butter and jam. It was now 3 days without a Green Smoothie and I was beginning to have withdrawal symptoms. I had managed to accumulate a bit of fruit so was contented with a fruit , nut and seed smoothie knowing that I would be into my greens Very soon.

DAY 4 A Green Smoothie at last! We found green leaves in abundance and the limited variety of fruit was fresh and of good quality so we made some simple Green Smoothie combinations such as:

Pawpaw, Banana, Naartjie, Apple, Lime, seeds and nuts and one of the additives and a load of spinach leaves. It was pure heaven! For 6 days we delighted in a big jug of Green Smoothie where flavours were altered by increasing and reducing the quantities of fruit and the variety of additives

DAY 10 The train journey to Delhi certainly did not offer Smoothies in the menu and no, please don’t ask me what we had for breakfast.

Day 11 Another bread and jam and milky tea which means another day without a Green Smoothie and more Abracadabra

DAY 12 The first day at the Ayruvedic Centre and guess what? Not even an Ayruvedic Smoothie for breakfast. Well that didn’t last long, I quickly convinced the Doctor that I REALLY needed Green Smoothies

DAY 13 Request for green leaves were met with general confusion about what I was looking for. The kitchen manager agreed to go and bring back green leaves from the market. Based on this, we enjoyed a fruit smoothie, upgraded with some raw cacoa, seeds and nuts.

DAY 14 To my absolute amazement the trip to the market proved unsuccessful. Can you imagine no green leaves! I mean absolutely No Green Leaves!! After some investigation I established that the Indians in the province of Kerela do not eat green leaves. So, what now? How do you make a Green Smoothie without green leaves? Oh yes! I remembered that in my bag of tricks was a bag of dehydrated kale - not truly a green smoothie because quantities were limited and these had to serve my salad upgrades too.

DAY 15 Today I added some Barley Life to the smoothie which gave it a definite green tinge. It wasn’t really a Green Smoothie, but that green tinge just made me feel better.

DAY 16 Great excitement today! I established that the leaves from the ‘drumstick’ tree are edible so guess what? Today I was in celebration, the first Green Smoothie in 5 days. Mmmm, it looked like a green smoothie and tasted like one - Just So Delicious. How can I explain the passion.

DAY 17 Another delicious drumstick smoothie. And I am told that drumstick leaves are very nutritious.

DAY 18 What a shock! Today my Ayruvedic detox started in ernest and Green Smoothies were no longer on the menu.

DAY 19-26 NO GREEN SMOOTHIES - Say no more!

DAY 27 Intense persuasion convinced the Doctor that I Really needed to get back to Green Smoothies so this morning I found some more drumstick leaves and savoured my first Green Smoothie in 9 days AND today we took an auto-rickshaw to the nearest town of Kottayam and low and behold, in a little vegetable shop I found and bought a bunch of one of two bunches of green leaves.

DAYS 28-32 We enjoyed not only Green Smoothies with green leaves
and our usual additives but now we had a Kerela

touch to things with the addition of what is known as tender coconut.
Oh, it's great to be back home with my Vitamix Super Blender and enough home grown greens to make all the smoothies I like.

Try some healthy smoothie this summer

Having a blended fruit drink can be the best way to pack a punch into your morning and create a glow on your face.

You might want to forget the coffee and tea after you read this, for research says a smoothie - which is a drink blended with vitamins, can bring energy to your diet. Drinking one in the morning helps keep you from having empty carbohydrates in the form of sweet doughnuts and other eats, but the biggest advantage of a smoothie as opposed to other juices is that it has natural fiber which helps to cleanse the digestive tract. 

A smoothie that has berries can help fight wrinkles and other skin ageing signs, as berries have antioxidants. They are also a way to control blood sugar that can play spoilsport with one's complexion.

Indulge with Domino’s All New Cheesy Boloroni Pizza!

Based on insight that consumers prefer ‘heavy’ dishes during winters, Domino’s has launched ’3 Cheese Pizza’, a combination of Cheddar, Gouda and Mozzarella.

“We have launched products like Cheese Burst and Double Cheese Burst in the past and they have been huge successes. Upon consumer research, we found out that 3 Cheese Pizza too is a big hit,” shared Harneet Singh Rajpal, Vice President-Marketing, Domino’s Pizza India.

“Variety is very important for our category. If you are promoting the same product again and again, the fatigue factor sets in,” he added.

For the launch of ’3 Cheese Pizza’, Domino’s has put aside a marketing budget of about Rs. 10 crore for the September 2011 to March 2012 period.

Being an impulse category, the QSR brand that was launched in India in 1996, plans to stick to TV and digital and not indulge in print for advertising.

Harneet Singh Rajpal, VP-Marketing, Domino's Pizza India

Apart from this, expansion has been a key to the brand’s success. The QSR brand is spreading its reach in Tier II and Tier III cities as well. Currently, it has 411 stores across 98 cities in India and aims to open more by the end of this financial year.

With a claimed market share of 54 per cent in the organised pizza category, the brand has moved from the functional positioning of ‘Hungry Kya?’ to harp on its USP of quick home delivery; and hence the new positioning ‘Khushiyon Ki Home Delivery’.

For Domino’s, the non-pizza category has also been a revenue generating avenue. Around 80 per cent of Domino’s orders of pizzas includes side orders as well.