SOLANO FROM JOYCO

It has been a long journey from 'Logrono' in Spain to Chennai, for Solano. A hard-boiled sweet candy, Solano was born as a brand, 170 years ago in Spain. This 17-decade-old success story started when Celestino Solano advised her husband, a confectioner to add milk along with a few drops of coffee, to the marsh mallows that he was making. Thus was born the world's most successful coffee drop 'Solano'.

Joyco India decided to replicate this success story in India starting with its regional launch in Tamil Nadu. A good decision when seen in light of the fact that Tamil Nadu is one of the most dynamic and largest market for confectionery in India, when it comes to volumes.

Joyco India entered the Indian market through a 51:49 joint venture with Dabur under the name General de Confiteria in 1995. It bought out Dabur's share in the JV in 1999 and became a fully owned subsidiary of the International Joyco Group, and is now called Joyco India.

Joyco is the third largest confectionery company in India today, with over 475 employees. It is recognised as the undisputed leader of the gum and lollipop segment of the confectionery market in India. Joyco has to be credited for having developed the lollipop market through its initiatives to educate the consumer and provided lollipop with its own distinctive share of the market space. The company also lays claim to having the widest distribution network, with over 1650 distributors reaching out to more than 4,00,000 retail outlets.

Solano the latest offering from Joyco is produced at the company's state-of-the-art facility at Baddi in Himachal Pradesh. According to Arun Hegde, the Managing Director of Joyco India, Solano was born after extensive research of Indian taste preferences. "Solano is a very popular candy in Europe and the market leader in Spain. The Indian variant of Solano is a caramel flavoured milk based candy, priced at 50 paise and is being launched in Chennai before a nationwide launch. We finalised the exact composition of Solano only after 'blind tests' conducted by an independent research agency proved conclusive. We have added more sugar and fat to cater to Indian tastes", he said. With this Joyco enters the hard-boiled sweet milk candy segment of the confectionery market, which has a size of 20,000 tonnes annually. The company expects sales revenue of Rs 50 crore in the first year from Solano.

Answering to a question on whether it is going to be marketed as a stand alone brand or under the Joyco banner, Hegde responded saying that, Solano would be promoted as a stand alone product but all future ads on TV would carry the Joyco logo at the end.

The company, which has a total turnover of more than Rs 100 crore, offers a diverse range of products from candies to gums. Boomer is the market leader in the bubble gum segment, while Bonkers, a 'soft chewy' is another well known product. Donald Bubble Gum, Donald Candy, Pim Pom, Mickey Toffee and Aqtimint are the other products from the Joyco India.