This Brand is Delivering Health and Convenience With Its Food Products

After completing his education in Bachelor’s of International Business from Australia, Shyamal Panchmatia joined the family business in 2006. Soon, he realised that his family business did not have many opportunities in terms of scalability and, hence, he started his own venture known as LB Flooring Pvt Ltd, which later was renamed to LB Industries Pvt Ltd.

Today, his entire focus is on LB Consumer Goods which is the FMCG business arm of LB Group. In 2016, with the intention to create a brand image and value-added product, the brand Ray emerged with its product – cooking spray – which focused on the health of the consumers.

After Ray Cooking Spray, Ray NoSugar and Ray Honey were launched by LB Consumer Goods; Ray NoSugar is a clean natural sweetener with Zero Calories and Zero Glycemic Index. It is recommended for calorie conscious and diabetics. LB Consumer Goods is the first in India to launch Easy Snap technology for food products.

With one hand-opening mess-free technology, the newest addition to the health and convenience product is Ray NoSugar. 

Shyamal Panchmatia, MD, L.B. Industries Pvt Ltd, tells Restaurant India how using the Ray NoSugar sachets made out of Easy Snap Technology will be fruitful for the HoReCa industry.

What are some of the interesting findings you came across during the R&D of your food products?

Speaking about Ray NoSugar, previously, there was no such product called liquid sugar delivered in a sachet in the food and beverage. Everyone is getting health conscious these days. They avoid sugar or any other sweetener. India is the diabetic capital of the world. Out of 100, 80 people would want beverage without sugar which means most of the time the artificial sweeteners are consumed by diabetics only. As per the certain data we have, every 12^th person in our country is diabetic. This brings me to the most interesting finding. The concern for a diabetic is that blood sugar should be on the level. If you are using a sweetener, other than sugar, yet it constitutes dextrose, sucralose, etc, you are not helping diabetics. This is where we thought that we have an interesting space in the industry. 

Tell us about the easy snap technology? 

It’s a one-hand opening technology; you don’t require a spoon. Basically, it’s a unique technology; the product is air-tight packed. When you open the sachet in the right direction the packaging gets cracked and then you squeeze it to get the product out. If we talk about Ray NoSugar, everybody is supplying simple sugar powder; the liquid is a bigger preference as it is more soluble and has got cleaner formulation.

USP of your products? 

Ray NoSugar doesn’t contain any poly oils, anyone, including pregnant women or children, can have it. Secondly, the formulation of Ray NoSugar is such that it has zero calories and zero Glycemic Index. Even, diabetics can take our product. Thirdly, Ray No Sugar is a natural sweetener. That’s how we stay ahead in the industry segment. Our product doesn’t contain dextrose, sucralose, lactose or aspartame. 

We are, currently, focusing on Ray Honey and Ray NoSugar. Honey is organic, unfiltered. That’s why we had kept it in a transparent pack; we want the consumers to see what raw honey looks like. Imagine, you are having waffles, pancakes, cereals or any beverages or green tea; you just need to pick up the fold and squeeze the sachet to use honey or the liquid sugar. You don’t need to worry about tearing the sachets. 

Along with a very good quality product we are delivering convenience. 

Ray Cooking Spray, is another novel idea. The cooking spray reduces the consumption 10 times from regular usage. When we talk about the restaurant and hotel industry, all the live stations where you usually sprinkle oil, cooking spray is more convenient, mess-free and hygienic.

Earlier, the product was a regular aerosol but now it is 100 per cent pure oil. 

Your contribution to the HoReCa segment?

Until now, our focus was on retail only. We are now looking into the HoReCa segment. We exhibited in Mumbai where we had interesting meetings with the likes of Radisson and Hilton Groups. Everybody was amused to see such technology. 

What more innovative products LB Consumer Goods will be introducing in the next two years?

We are working on a lot more products but it is too early for me to reveal anything. We had launched Ray NoSugar sweets; we call it Ray NoSugar bites. We’ve launched ethnic sweets like gulab jamuns, rasgulla, soan papdi; we are working on more sweets which will give you exactly the same taste as any regular sweet products but they will be sugar-free, completely.

What are your expansion plans with L.B. Consumer Goods? 

Right now, we are focusing on the geographies where we are already present, 13 cities in India – Mumbai, Pune, Baroda, Surat, Hyderabad, Bengaluru, Coimbatore, Chennai, Delhi NCR, Chandigarh, Lucknow, Kolkata and Nagpur. More than expansion, we are focused on stability right now. We want our products to reach throughout the country, at the hotels and restaurants who understand hygiene, convenience and value-added service. 

What is your marketing strategy with Ray NoSugar?

At the moment, we are focusing on digital marketing and in-store branding. Since we are a start-up, obviously we do not have deep pockets to go on television or do any kind of ETL marketing but we do a lot of live demos. We are also present at almost all the airports across the country.