India’s ethnic snack-food giant Haldiram’s Nagpur is on a growth track, opening its own manufacturing facility for long shelf-life dairy products. Setting up a massive dairy facility, with an investment of over Rs. 100 crore, Haldiram’s Nagpur is clearly looking to expand its footprint from its existing markets of Maharashtra, Goa and Chhatisgarh.

The company has chosen SIG, a leading systems and solutions provider for aseptic carton packaging, to help expand its business offerings by leveraging SIG’s pioneering filling machines for aseptic carton packs. For the first time, Haldiram’s Nagpur has invested in its own manufacturing setup for filling products into aseptic carton packs and SIG is supplying them with a high-speed CFA 1224 filling machine for combiblocXSlim carton packs.

According to SIG, its filling technology offers excellent flexibility with multiple volume offerings, making it an ideal choice for Haldiram’s. The company adds that its high-speed filling machine, able to fill 24,000 carton packs per hour, provides sufficient capacity for Haldiram’s to expand and grow over the next few years.

Sushil Agarwal, director at Haldiram’s Nagpur said, “SIG offered us state-of-the-art technology with full flexibility of nine volume sizes on one filling machine, all at high speed. This gives us a lot of options to pack a variety of products in a huge number of different packaging formats and sizes. And even more, the elegant, slim carton packs are very attractive and stand out on the shelf.”

Starting from co-packaging its products through contract manufacturers, Haldiram’s Nagpur now aims to launch an even wider range of ethnic dairy and non-dairy products, leveraging on its existing retail network and distribution capabilities.

Neeraj Agarwal, marketing director at Haldiram’s Nagpur, said, “Our brand Haldiram’s is a household name, associated with great quality and fantastic products. With SIG, we know that we will be able to extend this in a big way into the ethnic beverages category, We will be able to introduce beverages that consumers really enjoy, in the right sized packaging that suits different consumption occasions.”

The product offerings will include buttermilk under the name Matka Jhatka, sold in 200 ml combiblocXSlim carton packs, along with Aam Panna, Jal Jeera, a variety of lassi products. According to the company, further innovations are in the pipeline.

Vandana Tandan, country manager for SIG India, said, “We are really excited about working with Haldiram’s Nagpur. Their ambition to create differentiated products has perfect synergy with SIG’s filling system, which allows maximum flexibility. We believe that with Haldiram’s, we will introduce some really innovative products and grow together in this exciting category of ethnic beverages.”

Haldiram’s is also setting up a range of widespread franchise networks in several Indian cities to offer everything from sweets and confectioneries to namkeens, juices, and more. The flexibility that SIG offers, along with the ability of its machines to fill products with pieces and bits, like milkshakes with pieces of dry fruits or nuts, juice products with fruit bits and much more, will help ramp up Haldiram’s capacities and offerings, based on the varying needs of Indian consumers.