Ice cream wars: Omore comes to Karachi

Competition amongst producers intensifies.

KARACHI: He may be an ice cream vendor, but Fazal Ahmed cannot afford to chill. Ahmed is one of dozens of vendors mounted on ice cream carts or ‘trikes’ that hit Karachi on January 20 as the face of Omore ice cream in the city. He has the unenviable task of riding the trike all day through different parts of the city to spread one simple message: Omore ice cream is now available in Karachi.

For the residents of Karachi, months of hearing about the new ice cream from their friends and family members in Punjab have finally culminated into the opportunity to experience the brand first hand. But the makers of the brand, Engro Foods, have not made a big show of the launch, yet. “It will take time to deploy thousands of freezers that are needed throughout the city and we want to make sure that stores are well stocked before we start campaigning aggressively,” explained Brand Manager Frayan Mama.

He revealed that an official launch will follow in a couple of weeks. However, trikes have already hit the streets and if they are any measure of the competition among ice cream manufacturers, it seems the race will intensify.

Citizens have spotted Walls and Omore trikes trailing each other in and out of the city’s streets. “Wherever we go, the Walls guys follow,” said Ahmed. “Right now we are the new brand that people have been waiting for so we are getting a lot of attention,” he said, but acknowledged that “they (Walls) are the older brand that everyone knows already.”

Kids are perhaps more eager to try the new brand than others. Outside a local school in Darakshan, throngs of students were seen trying to get their hands on the new offerings. “There was such a rush at the Omore cart that one of the parents felt bad for the other vendor and bought his ice cream for the drivers waiting outside the school,” recalled one observer.

In an earlier interview with The Express Tribune, Walls Director Khayyam Rajpoot hailed the coming of competition as “the biggest blessing for existing ice cream manufacturers.” He explained that the national launch of Engro’s ice cream brand will mean more expenditure on advertisements that could in turn produce higher demand for the frozen treats.

Exuding confidence, Rajpoot commented “Walls is synonymous with ice cream,” asserting that when an ice cream cart or trike pulls into a neighborhood and plays the brand’s jingle, everyone knows the ice cream man has come. Yet it is clear that the older ice cream manufacturers are keeping a keen eye on Omore’s expanding presence.

Igloo Brand Manager Fareed Tharani told The Express Tribune, “there will definitely be more competition on the dealers’ side.” He pointed out that ice cream prices have not increased significantly in more than a year despite rising costs of input and explained that this is a consequence of higher competition between brands.

While competition has intensified with the entry of Engro Foods in the ice cream market, its coming has also been helpful to the industry in some ways. “Between Unilever and us, there is a lot of spending on advertising,” said Mama. He explained that “this has been a major factor in annual growth of about 25 per cent in the industry.”

The market for ice creams is growing rapidly and for now, competitors have stayed clear of brand wars. But on the streets, the race is already heating up.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 27^th,  2011.