Middle East region to savour top notch tea bags for the first time

Dubai, 25 February 2009: Wagh Bakri Tea Group, India's largest privately held packaged tea group introduces World's latest and India's first staple free Hygienic tea bags at Gulf Food 2009 for the Middle East markets. Wagh Bakri has for the first time ever launched staple free teabags for Middle East, Europe and USA customers.

"The Gulf Food 2009 is a very important event for us for a variety of reasons: it is the largest event of its type in the world, it gives us an opportunity to position ourselves as a leading international Tea Brand and it's the first time Middle East will be experiencing staple free hygienic tea bags where the aroma of the hand picked premium tea stays fresher. This state-of-the-art technology ensures safety since the bags are meticulously tied by thread. There is no metal and no fear of staple falling in the tea. Also it possible to put the tea bags in the microwave oven. The Waghbakri group with a turnover of Rs.400 cr (USD 80 million) and brands which are household names in India, North America, Australia, UK, and Middle East have decided to aggressively invest for customer satisfaction and innovation. We are targeting a 50% growth rate in the Middle East with this top-notch tea bags." said Mr Rasesh Desai - Managing Director of the WaghBakri Group at Gulf food 2009 exhibition.

Mr Parag Desai, Director of the WB Group, on the occasion of launch said, "We have recently installed India's first & world's latest machine to produce non staple tea bag, IMA-INDUSTRIA AUTOMATICHE MACCHINE (IMA C27) in our Dholka plant in Gujarat, India. The company has procured IMA C27 from Italy for producing world class double chamber Tea Bags. IMA has production capacity of 250 teabags per minute. C 27 tea bags will soon be available on store shelves across in all major regions of Middle East and other developed markets of U.K, USA and Europe. Internationally tea bags have a market share of 70% and we hope to contribute significantly to the total market share with our highly specialised hygienic product. We would also be participating in Foodex Japan next month with this product."

Elaborating further on the future plans of the company, Mr Paras Desai, Director of the WB group stated," It is about 'being from the future', seeing it and willing it to happen before it does. We are the first Indian company to invest in futuristic trend. We have done market survey on the taste and liking of the consumer and accordingly undertaken this investment of more than Rs 4 crores to suit the requirements of health conscious consumers all over the world. Our existing sales volume is more than 22 million kg's and annual turnover is more than INR 400 crores (USD 80 million). We are also planning to increase our production capacity by setting up a world class factory at Nadiad, in the state of Gujarat, India."              

The fear of recession World Wide in the current down turn scenario has affected most of the organizations across the World, but Wagh Bakri Tea Group is amongst the handful Corporates that is swimming against the tide.

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About Wagh Bakri Tea Group:
Wagh Bakri tea group is a premium tea group since its inception in the year 1892. The tea baron, Shri Narandas Desai started the company in Ahmedabad being experienced in the art of blending and tea growing which he learned while owning a tea estate in South Africa. The Wagh Bakri Tea Group's core philosophy stands for the peace, unity and co-existence and is the reason that Shri Narandas Desai chose the Wagh (Tiger) & Bakri (Goat) as their symbols. Today Wagh Bakri is among the top three tea companies in India. The company has strong foothold in four Indian states of Gujarat, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh & Maharastra. The company has 65,000 sq yards of sophisticated production facility with production capacity of over 8 lakh packets per day. Wagh Bakri offers a basket full of brands for different need groups and price segments. Wagh Bakri Tea Group products are Good Morning premium tea & tea bags, Wagh Bakri tea, Masala tea bags & Teaquik, Mili, Navchetan available right from the small economy packs to the 1 kg packs in pouches, carton packs and jars along with speciality teas like D'Ling certified Darjeeling teas. We have introduce the certified organic teas -first in India from LACON, Germany .Today Wagh Bakri is a global brand with presence in many countries like USA,UK Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Oman, Kuwait, Dubai and many others. The group is progressive & contempory under the help of the next generation Shri.Paragbhai R.Desai & Shri.Parasbhai P.Desai who have a professional team of Managers heading the various functions of the group.

For Further Information Please Contact:
Mr. Kunal Kapadia:
Mob: +919824088810

© Press Release 2009