Ceylon Biscuits wins at global brand awards

Bags two awards for Munchee and Ritzbury at the World Brand Congress 2010

By Uditha Jayasinghe

Sri Lanka’s corporate sector must focus on building brands to get global focus for the country, says Ceylon Biscuits Limited (CBL).

It bagged two awards at the recently-concluded global awards for brand excellence during the World Brand Congress 2010 in Mumbai. The two winning brands were Ritzbury and Munchee.

CBL is the largest producer of Fast Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG) in Sri Lanka and this was the first time that it won a brand award at an international competition.

The World Bank Congress is represented by 100 countries from across the world and is aimed at company chairs, presidents, directors and CEOs from leading conglomerates and brands that influence innovation and change. Over 500 brands were represented from every product and service category in each continent.

These two brands were also the only FMCG brands that won awards. “Before you can build a brand, you must first indentify a gap in the market and then produce a truly high standard product to meet that requirement. When CBL wanted to break into the biscuit and chocolate market in 2000 we had a very small market share but we managed to expand that because of our determination to become number one. We identified the short comings of the products already in the market and then evolved products that would meet consumer needs,” noted Group Director and Marketing and Sales Head Nandana Wickramage.

With a presence in 45 countries CBL first sent their products into the international market under other brand names and only once they were sure of it being well received did they decide to market under a unique brand. The result was that their market share and volumes doubled in 10 years and currently Ritzbury commands 49% of the market share while the CBL flagship brand Munchee holds 60% of biscuit sales.

Ghana is the company’s best overseas market followed by Australia but expansion into India is on hold until production issues are sorted out. Wickramage stated that the factory established in northern India is facing a legal issue with the former owner suing the courts that sold it to CBL and therefore even though the company is not involved it had to stop manufacturing.  The new factory being built in Seethawaka will also be exclusively for exports.

Presentations outlined how these two brands were nurtured over the years with Munchee diversifying the market as well as adding more value by re-launching their existing products. Ritzbury was credited with changing the market, which was used to slabs by introducing products to meet different consumers.