Sweetmeat biz booms on corporate gifts

Country's sweetmeat businesses have witnessed a boom in recent times with corporate gift topping the list to greet their clients on the occasion of Pahela Baishakh and other festivals.
Innovation in packaging, diverse design and taste of sweetmeat along with sugar-free variety attract the corporate houses to choose the item as gift.
On Pahela Baishakh, sweetmeat sales jump significantly, almost half of annual sales, due to its huge demand.
Although there is no accurate statistics about the number of sweetmeat shops in Bangladesh, it is learnt that a number of new brands are coming in the market with new variety while old brands are disappearing gradually.
During the last few years, sweetmeat businesses saw a competitive market in terms of design, variety, taste and packaging.
With the rise in new generation sweetmeat brands, old brands are gradually losing their market share due to lack of efforts to diverse their items.
Talking to the FE, some new generation sweetmeat shop owners said they have launched aggressive marketing to attract the corporate clients with innovation and ensuring the quality of sweetmeats.
Old sweetmeat shops such as Moronchand Grand Sons, Mohon Chand, Rajdhani, Alauddin, Islamia, Sitaram are among the major old sweetmeat brands disappearing from the market gradually.
Sweetmeat owners said the next generation of those brand owners are not interested to continue sweetmeat business and compete with other new brands considering the nature of business.
Mohammad Ali, owner of Muslim Sweets, said lack of skilled manpower and unwillingness of next generation are the major causes for poor progress of his business.
He started business with Muslim Sweetmeat outlets in Bijoynagar in 1967. In last 52 years, he has opened two more outlets in the city while many are using the name in their sweetmeat outlets.
He said sweetmeat business is not as casual as it was before because many large corporate houses have stated sweetmeat business on large scale.
Gopal Chandra Ghosh, Owner of Rajdhani Mistanna Bhandar, said marketing strategies plays an important role in expanding the sweetmeat business in recent times.
Gopal, also an adviser of Bangladesh Sweetmeat Owners Association having nearly 1500 members, started businesses 32 years ago and expanded outlets in Mymensingh and Tangail areas.
He said procuring milk from outside the city is a troublesome job due to traffic jam. "I had to incur loss several times due to contamination of milk because of traffic jam," he added.
Some substandard sweetmeat shops are also doing business taking the advantage of relaxed quality control efforts of the government.
Mushrooming growth of new sweetmeat shops is a matter of grave concern as raw materials of sweetmeat are highly prone to bacteria, posing threat to public health.
Asked about the issue, Bangladesh Standards and Testing Institution (BSTI) Director SM Ishaq Ali said BSTI had not so far taken such steps to ensure the quality of sweetmeat as it is not preserved for a long time.
"It is the responsibility of Bangladesh Safe Food Authority to check marketing of adulterated food, but in respect of sweetmeat, I have not seen any significant steps," he said.
BSTI will give certification to sweetmeat shops if any company is willing to obtain it, he added.
Premium Sweets, one of the posh brands in the country, has already started exporting sweetmeat to the USA, UK, Australia and other Asian countries.
Md Mahbubur Rahman Bakul, head of corporate and current in-charge of Premium Sweets, said as there is no religious sentiment involved with Pahela Baishakh, the first day of Bangla New Year, people of all religions buy sweetmeat on this occasion.
"We sell about 50 per cent of our annual sales on this occasion," he said.
He said Premium Sweets has started the trend and new concept to present sweetmeat with innovation and variety.
"Our quality control and marketing team remains active to improve the brand image," he added.
However, demand for the country's renowned brands of sweetmeat is still high. But people hardly get access to those due to lack of availability of those area-based sweetmeats in other parts of the country.
Roshmalay of Cumilla, Kacha Golla of Natore, Doi of Bogura, Monda of Muktagacha, Chomchom of Porabari are traditional area-based sweetmeat of the country.
Those products deserve to obtain Geographic Indication (GI) from the Ministry of Industry.
Industry ministry sources said Roshmalay of Cumilla is already on the priority list to obtain GI registration.
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