Orkla strengthens its presence in India with a foray into the Indian confectionary category

Bangalore, 22^nd August, 2017: Orkla Group, the Norwegian leader in branded consumer goods and parent company of MTR Foods Pvt. Ltd., today announced the company’s foray into the Indian confectionary category with the launch of Laban – a specially crafted human-shaped, non-sticky, 100% vegetarian, fruit flavoured chew. The brand’s entry also marks the first product from the company’s portfolio in the confectionary category.

Laban – Norway’s number 1 confectionary brand from Orkla, will be manufactured and distributed by MTR Foods Pvt. Ltd. in India. Extensive research was undertaken to arrive at a formulation that would not only suit the discerning Indian consumer preferences but also retain the brand attributes i.e. the stretchy, chewy quality of Laban and its unique human shape. The product proposition has been localized to make it a 100% vegetarian confectionary with a range of popular Indian flavors such as Strawberry, Mango, Green Mango and Orange.

Speaking on the occasion, Peter Ruzicka, CEO, Orkla ASA, said, “The Indian confectionary market is seeing huge potential that Orkla would like to tap into. The current estimates show that the industry is close to INR 8200 crores with a YoY growth at 7%. The tremendous growth that we are witnessing in the category along with the other economic indicators of the country has given us the confidence to launch Laban in India.”

Atle Vidar-Nagel Johanssen, CEO, Orkla Foods said, “With the localization of Laban based on the preferences of Indian consumers, this will be the first product to come from the Orkla portfolio in the confectionary category in India. We are confident that Laban will prove to be a growth-driver for Orkla in the Indian market.”

Best-in-class production equipment from various countries such as Germany, Britain and Korea have been brought together to put up a state-of-the-art production line at MTR Foods’ Bengaluru manufacturing facility with a total investment of Rs. 40 crores. Besides the manufacturing facility, MTR Foods’ robust supply chain and distribution network across India will be leveraged to ensure wider reach of the brand. The packaging of the product has also been redesigned in order to appeal to the Indian consumers.

Sharing his perspective on the unique aspects of Laban, Sanjay Sharma, CEO, MTR Foods Pvt. Ltd. said, “We have invested close to INR 40 crores on this project to ensure that we get everything right – from getting the best manufacturing equipment from across the world to procuring the quality ingredients from across the world. With its unique human shape, popular Indian flavors and stretchy property along with a product concept of promoting childlike joy, Laban is clearly differentiated from any other confectionary in the industry. With an India wide launch and MTR’s sales and marketing bandwidth behind this product, we are confident about the success of Laban. ”

Laban will be launched with a hi-decibel campaign and will be available at all general and modern trade outlets across India priced at Rs. 10 for the 26 gms pack and Rs 30 for the 65 gms pack.

 

Innovative Foods Ltd launches Sumeru ‘classique’ parathas with Chef Ajay Chopra

Bangalore, August 10^th, 2017: Innovative Foods Ltd. (IFL), a major player in the Indian food processing industry, which markets their frozen food range under the brand name Sumeru, today launched a new line-up of their frozen parathas.

At the launch event, Chef Ajay Chopra, who was recently announced as the brand ambassador for Sumeru, whipped up some lip smacking dishes to showcase the versatility of Sumeru’s frozen paratha range. He also demonstrated a few tips and tricks for everyone who’s looking to create quick homemade meals with frozen parathas.

Speaking on the occasion, Saurabh Kumar, VP, Sales & Marketing, IFL said “The growing acceptance of frozen food in India has pushed us out of our seats to think of new product solutions. Providing convenience and versatility to consumers has been one of the core pillars on which our product portfolio stands and our aim has been to enable consumers create restaurant like meals at home. Our new range of Parathas are a delightful triangulated combination of taste, health & excitement.

“My association with Sumeru has given me a platform to make people believe that you don’t need to be a chef to experience a restaurant class meal at home. Parathas are a favourite across India and with a little innovative thinking, they can easily be adapted to a variety of dishes.” mentioned Chef Ajay Chopra, Brand Ambassador Sumeru, who has previously been a judge on Master Chef India

Suraj Sharma, GM, Marketing IFL, commented, “A lot of research has gone into making these new products. Whether it’s the multigrain variant or beetroot with jeera or turmeric with ajwain or methi with spinach – all these combinations have been developed keeping in mind the health factor along with the taste which today’s discerning consumer demands.”

The event started with Innovative Foods ltd addressing the media followed by a delightful demo cooking session with Chef Ajay.

The new range of parathas launched today are as follows:

·       Beetroot & Jeera Paratha

·       Turmeric & Ajwain Paratha

·       Methi & Spinach Paratha

·       Multigrain Paratha

These parathas are easily accessible at your nearest grocery store and are reasonably priced in the bracket of Rs 80-100 per pack of 5.

About Sumeru

Innovative Foods Limited (IFL) is a major player in the Indian food processing industry since 1989. Under the brand name 'Sumeru', they manufacture and market various types of ready to eat vegetarian and non-vegetarian food that includes seafood, Poultry and Pork. Their customized products are supplied to various leading food service companies in India. Their core business is frozen food. They have retailed the multi-category product portfolio across the country with a presence on all major modern trade counters with a pan India presence that covers all tiers of cities and towns. They have embarked their presence in the Indian ethnic export market via USA while the manufacturing units are in the south Indian state Kerala, Kochi.

Philips, connecting India for a healthy future

Bangalore, July 28, 2017: Philips Innovation Campus, successfully organized their third Digital Healthcare Conclave on July 28, 2017. The conference shed light on why connected healthcare is the need of the hour for our country and how it can solve the existing healthcare problems.

Indian healthcare system has always grappled with 2 As - Accessibility and Affordability challenges. In 2015, there were 25354 Primary Health Center (PHC)s in India and 8.1% of these PHCs were without a doctor. To add to this, 38% of deaths are due to communicable diseases, maternal, per-natal and nutritional disorders, and 42% of deaths are due to non-communicable diseases. This burden will only increase as less than 15% of population is covered by insurance. With all these challenges, one can hear the wheels of Indian healthcare cranking hard and heaving to pull. How do we address this?

While there has been a lot of innovations in healthcare where technology has shown the potential to find solutions, it is important that there is a common roadmap, strategy that would help the ecosystem work in tandem towards relevant solutions.

The challenge

Indian healthcare system is burdened with numerous challenges. While it is seen that innovative solutions using digital technologies have been able to address these challenges effectively, there is a long way to go. Connected healthcare solutions is a key to this. But for this to work, it requires an ecosystem where health data is available to care givers. But India lacks a common health data repository. The PHCs DHCs and CHCs are not connected.

Connected care and AI supported by UIDAI (Aadhaar) could help in addressing these challenges 

The National Healthcare Policy 2017, talks about how connected healthcare is the solution to the existing healthcare problems in India. The policy suggests the setting up of a National Digital Health Authority (NDHA) to regulate, develop and deploy digital health across the continuum of care using digital technologies. It highlights the role of Aadhaar to make connected healthcare a reality by establishing a seamless and efficient National Health Information Network.

Philips has been at the forefront of using digital technology in healthcare. Its various connected care solutions have increased accessibility to care in remotest corners of the world, empowered patients to manage their health while also giving health providers tools to improve patient outcomes. With a r mission to touch more than 3 billion lives by 2025, Philips is working towards creating meaningful innovations that will make healthcare accessible to all. Some of these innovations include:

Data Science Platform (DSP)

Healthcare is transitioning from episodic, fragmented care to networked, continuous care which enables population health management, integrating data from disparate point solutions across hospitals, physician practices, insurance and consumer homes. It provides actionable and context sensitive information to clinicians, patients and care givers. To provide analytics for such a wide range, there is a need for a data science platform that has comprehensive capabilities to do analytics on many aspects including analysis on longitudinal data. Philips Data Science Platform is a platform for healthcare analytics meant for data scientists and product development teams to develop analytical models and applications providing a standardized data science platform that ensures seamless development and deployment across healthcare continuum. This Platform empowers healthcare organizations to spend more time understanding their data, freeing them from the responsibility and expense of building, maintaining and deploying data science capabilities in-house. With these advanced analytics and artificial intelligence methods, organizations can rapidly  .. create predictive models, optimize operational workflow, and accelerate development of analytics offerings

DSP comes prepackaged with most of the open source tools, frameworks, libraries etc. that data scientists use. DSP comes with a rich set of pertained clinical models for Medical images and clinical reports - that can either be consumed directly within a hospital workflow or by data scientists to build their own custom specific models/apps.

Mobile Obstetrics Monitoring (MoM).

High fetal and maternal mortality rates continue to remain one of the major concerns in the healthcare space. The Philips Mobile Obstetrics Monitoring (MOM) software solution helps community caregivers and doctors work together to identify and manage high-risk pregnancies, bringing care to where it’s urgently needed: primary health centers and patient homes. MOM features a way for community caregivers to capture vital information so that a clinical decision support (CDS) pregnancy risk level can be calculated. This helps standardize pregnancy risk stratification so that high-risk cases are not missed. Mobile applications connect doctor, caregiver, and patient for diagnostic assistance and progress assessment.

A pilot study using MOM is being done in Shorapur Taluk in Yadagir District, Karnataka since December 2016. Philips has partnered with Narayana Health and National Rural Health Mission, Karnataka for this study. Over 1000 women have already been covered under this study.

Chest Pain Clinics (CPC)

While cardiovascular diseases have quadrupled in the last 40 years, 50% of the affected patients arrive too late for appropriate treatment. If the patient receives treatment within one hour of the ‘the golden hour’, possibilities of saving his/her life increase manifold.

Philips Innovation Campus has developed a solution ‘Chest Pain Clinics’ to answer the problem. A Chest Pain Clinic is essentially a clinic or a small healthcare facility that is devoted to the care of outpatients, primarily CAD patients. These CPCs serve as the first point of contact for the patient and are usually run by general physicians or non-interventional cardiologists. The pre-requisite for a CPC is that it should be: Capable of performing ECGs on patient. They are equipped with Philips Efficia ECG 100 an innovative, portable, easy to use ECG machine, with diagnostic quality ECG machine intended for acquisition, recording, measurement, display and printing of simultaneous 12 channel ECG waveforms of patients in ECG room for both in-patient and outpatient.

In this model, CPCs will constitute the spokes for the ‘hub’ hospital. Once a patient arrives at one of the spoke CPCs, the local physician evaluates the patient’s symptoms and, performs an ECG via the Philips Efficia ECG 100. This ECG is wirelessly transmitted to the on-call cardiologist. Once Cardiologist reviews the ECG, he instructs the general physician on the next steps for treatment of patient.