As the holiday season with Christmas and new year’s kick in, chocolates and such other gifting segments witness a growing demand with every brand trying to tap into this market with their new launches and innovation. The Sunday Guardian spoke to Vimal Sharma, the Founder-Director CEO at SMOOR that is into the business of premium true couverture chocolates to understand how this market has been and what this season looks like. Excerpts.
Q: What has been the journey of SMOOR in the world of luxury chocolate?
A: SMOOR is known for chocolates and desserts where chocolate is our IP. SMOOR was conceived as a destination for all things chocolate and to give the Indian customer an international, indulgent experience like never before. Our focus is on providing a luxury chocolate experience and indulgent chocolate-based treats. Today the brand has grown to represent not just chocolates but high-quality international style cakes and desserts for all occasions – self
Indulgence and celebrations. We started in 2016 with our signature lounge at Indiranagar, Bangalore. Today the brand has over 25 stores in cities like Bangalore, Mumbai, Delhi NCR and Chennai.
Q: What is the differentiating factor of SMOOR from the rest of the players in the country?
A: SMOOR is a homegrown brand that offers couverture chocolates. We create flavours and textures that help customers experience chocolates in many ways. Be it the percentage of cocoa in the chocolate or the use of ingredients. We pair our chocolates with international nuts and flavours like hazelnuts, macadamia nuts, cranberry as well as Indian flavours and spices like cardamom, star anise and Assam tea. We achieve the textures through the way we temper our chocolates or stone grinding the cocoa beans for added smoothness. Secondly, we can customise a box of chocolates according to the customers’ palette. For example, if a customer is looking for a high cocoa percentage, we can create a box of pralines using the cocoa percentage. If they want to blend the chocolates to the Indian Mithais flavour, we can produce those as well. This not only goes for the gifting boxes but also, for your beverages as well as snacking chocolates. SMOOR also offers cakes, Macarons and desserts which customers relish.
Q: How is SMOOR tapping the Christmas and New Year festive mood this season?
A: SMOOR is known for bringing out a special range of festive treats. Our Christmas range is one such range the customer looks forward to each year. Our Christmas Plum Cakes are highly coveted as they are rich with dry fruits, cinnamon and made with butter. Our range also includes other Christmas Treats made using authentic European recipes – The Christmas Fruit Cake and Christmas Mince Pies follow a traditional English recipe while our Christmas Stollen Bread is made using a German family bakery recipe and is loaded with marzipan, dry fruits and fruit peels. We also launch a range of cookies for the season and our gingerbread cookies and pinwheel cookies are always a sell out. SMOOR is also known for its hampers and for the Christmas season too we have a range of hampers that customers buy to treat their family and friends with.
Q: How do you look at the growth of your company in the coming months?
A: We are in the market to raise Series a funds and we are in serious discussion with some prime equity firms. We expect to be in a position to close this in the next six months. We intend to take our store count to 50 next year. We would open more stores in Mumbai, Delhi NCR and Chennai. We will also foray into newer markets like Hyderabad, Pune, Chandigarh and Goa. With this expansion, which also helps us grow our online reach, we are looking at doubling our turnover by 2023. We should be racing towards 200+ outlets in various formats within the next 5 years.
Q: Can you highlight the trends that worked for the industry in 2021 and what will work in 2022
A: We expect the Premium Chocolate category to continue to grow in double digits; it will become a bigger snacking option, a convenience food. Product innovations will continue especially high fibre, high protein, no added sugar and vegan chocolates which continue to trend and grow. Chocolate beverages and chocolate desserts category will also continue to grow.
Q: In a month’s time, the budget is soon going to be announced. Any wishes for your industry?
A: The chocolate industry has a huge growth potential. A few measures by the Government will help the industry achieve it. Chocolates currently have a GST of 18%, a reduction of the same to 12% will definitely boost the growth in the category and it will also benefit the small players with boutique offering. Reduction on import duty of chocolate raw material will help reduce cost, which will benefit the customer and help the category grow. With Covid threat continuing to loom, business losses should be allowed to be carried forward upto 10 years.
