Cecilia Ashagerdian of ChoCo’a Chocolatier, a 4 year old chocolate company from Dubai, U.A.E, was recently in India to look and search for options to enter the Indian market. Exhibiting at IFE India 2008 in New Delhi, the company brought a nice selection of different varieties of milk, dark and white chocolate to Delhi for its various business discussions.
ChoCo’a is primarily interested in setting up a franchise network in India, but would also be open for the right importer, Cecilia Ashagerdian, the corporate account manager of the company explained to FII.
“Actually, our target is not that we only want to have franchisees. We can also work through an importer and a distributor but the challenge is to find the right importer/distributor that can manage a controlled supply chain from the minute our products enter India to the minute they reach to the consumer”, she told FII. “With a franchisee this is much easier to manage,” she added.
ChoCo’a, whose production is done entirely in Dubai with raw material imported from Belgium, is targeting the premium segment of the chocolate market. “Hence, we are thinking of keeping the price on the higher side. The same is in the pipeline,” Ashagerdian said. Target cities in India are Mumbai and New Delhi in the beginning.
The company, whose name “ChoCo’a” has obviously been derived from the word cocoa, was founded by Assem Hamzeh in Dubai. Its products come in 40 different shapes and sizes with different white and dark chocolate and with special fillings like nuts and coffee, or cornflakes, spices or chili. Apart from that, traditional Arabic fruits like baklava covered with chocolate are also available.
Along with Dubai, ChoCo’a has markets in Kuwait, Azerbaijan and Germany. With the dream of spanning the globe, ChoCo’a is choosing their markets in a gradual and cautious manner. “We are hopeful that ChoCoa’s pre-packed chocolate boxes as well as our concept of branded chocolate gift packs for corporate clients would be liked and appreciated by Indian customers,” Ashagerdian said.