Manufacturing a slew of tea products, the State-owned Tamil Nadu Tea Plantation Corporation (TANTEA) is focusing on retail sale of its products besides selling tea through its auction centres.
The TANTEA has begun sale of its products through “Aavin’ booths and cooperative super markets and stores across the State to scale up its domestic market business, its managing director A.S. Jafry said here on Monday.
In addition to scouting for more dealers to make retail sale effective, the TANTEA has requested the State government to sell its products through the public distribution system, Mr. Jafry said.
There were right now around 400 retail outlets across the State selling a range of TANTEA products with 15 to 20 of them managed by the corporation.
The corporation had forayed into online sale of its products and business through this mode was picking up, Mr. Jafry said.
Planting tea on over 4,300 hectares in Nilgiris and Coimbatore districts by engaging over 5,000 permanent workers, the TANTEA had recently introduced ‘White Tea’ and ‘Green Tea Pearls’ in the market.
Ninety eight per cent of tea was sold through auction centres at Kochi, Coonoor, and Coimbatore, he said and added that the corporation sold around 90 lakh kg of tea per year.
To overcome manpower shortage, the corporation was going in for machine harvest.
Stating that the market was down right now, Mr. Jafry said the corporation’s turn over was around Rs. 74 crore in 2013-14 fiscal and expects to touch Rs. 60 crore to Rs. 65 crore this financial year.
Mr. Jafry inaugurated a TANTEA outlet at Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited (BHEL) Township here on Monday in the presence of Rakesh Kumar Jagenia, General Manager, TANTEA, and senior BHEL officials.
