Maliban introduces nutrition crackers

by Charmaine FERNANDO

Maliban, with its reputation as the nutrition supplier to the nation, introduces yet another first, 3 new cracker products to excite the markets to a whole new world of taste.

Ravi Jayawardena, CEO, Sales and Marketing and Hashan Haputhanthri, Marketing Manager launches 3 new Maliban Cracker products for the 1st time in Sri Lanka. Pix by: Sumanachandra Ariyawansa

'Natural essence of green-vegetable in a cracker' is just one, said Hashan Haputhanthri, Marketing Manager, addressing a press conference at the launch of 3 new crackers to the market, at the Maliban Auditorium, Ratmalana, recently.

Most school children forego breakfast or eat off-the-counter fast-foods in order to get to school on time. Research data show that the majority of Sri Lankan school children skip breakfast and therefore act lethargic lacking proper concentration.

Eat breakfast like a king; lunch like a prince and dinner like a poor man notes a famous English quote, emphasizing the importance of breakfast. The period from dinner last night to breakfast the following morning, a person foregoes meals for a good 10 to 12 hours. A nutritious breakfast therefore is a must to revive the body engine to take up the load of activity throughout the day. In between delayed meals one needs to supplement the loss of nutrition. Maliban has identified this need and have come forward to support the nation's youth and the working population with a nutrition enriched, quality driven cracker that's freely available at an affordable price.

'Vege Cracker', comes with its crisp favour of essence of natural vegetable. 'Fun' Cracker is created with a sweet appeal to match the taste of children while Classic Cracker with its buttery taste is bound to catch the fancy of everyone. Each handy pack is priced economically, at Rs. 30/- and has enough nutritional goodness to supplement a meal. Made to a bite-size it's handy and the tastes promise excitement and lasting appeal, he said.

The teenage and young adult markets are bound to find the Classic and Vege Cracker just after their taste and will prove a happy bite and party favourite, he said.

The new 3 Cracker varieties are the successful result of much market research on the aspirations of different age groups, social classes, countrywide taste experiments based on market needs and demands. Once we introduced the product to the markets we observe customer behaviour which give us insights into what the customer feels and aspires for and whether we have matched their demands, said Ravi Jayawardena, CEO, Sales and Marketing.

Cracker market consists of 40% of the biscuit market and to date there was no new cracker introduced to the people other than the cream cracker. Maliban took this as a national initiative to feed the needs and aspirations of a nation. Our strength is our network of approximately 500 speciality boutiques and 120,000 agents islandwide. Of them around 70,000 reported repeat buyers.

The attraction for the taste and affordability is creating a cracker revolution reports reliable market sources from the outstations where the product is in much demand since its launch hardly 3 weeks ago.75% of the products distributed have been sold in record 3 weeks. This is a clear indication we are delighting our customers, he said.

We are happy to dedicate this 'Vege' Cracker to our vegetarian market up North and East and of course, all over the country. We are penetrating new markets with the dawn of peace in the country. We are increasing our dealership to 80,000 and outlet network to a record 100,000 by the end of year 2009. We have caught up more market share with this dynamic new product line that was forecast to expand in 6 months.

Playing in a market where availability is key, we are well set to ride the crest again in no time. One does not have to learn rocket science to analyze that markets go for alternate products, and we have done just that.

The 3 new quality Maliban Cracker products we launched today is the token-result of a time and flavour revolution over 3 generations, enjoying consistent taste of success.