MTR FOODS- A MARKETING SENSATION

                                                                   

Conducting marketing activities based on customer’s requirements and delivering products satisfying customer’s needs and wants are the two main pillars behind the success of MTR foods. Any business is driven by environmental parameters known as PESTEL factors. P- Political, E- Ethical,  S- Social, E- Economical, L- Legal and T- Technological. These tools are used to analyze the macro- environmental (external marketing environment) factors that have a huge impact on the organization, and any business is successful in strategy when it is able to map its external environment and internal resources.    Apart from this, ‘Quality’ is their main USP to attract and retain customers. Here is an example of MTR’s ability to understand the customer’s requirements and providing a range of successful business reorientations from MTR tiffin’s MTR foods to creating products like Ready-to-Cook (RTC) like idle, upma, dosa etc. and Ready-To-Make (RTM) Masala ingredients.

MTR can be considered as marketing marvel because of its ability to deduce the industry’s environmental drivers that dominate the food industry, i.e. food consumption and food habits of consumer, and based on that, was able to design an appropriate marketing mix elements- 4Ps (product, place, price and promotion).

COMPANY's EVOLUTION:

MTR foods was originated from Mavalli Tiffin Room (commonly known as MTR). MTR is a food related enterprise originated in Bangalore, India, and now has its presence in Singapore, Dubai and Muscat. It has also claimed to be inventor of popular south Indian dish- Rava Idli.In 1970, when India was under emergency situation, it (India) mandated that food was to be sold at very low prices. This made MTR difficult to run its business, so looking at the situation they started selling Ready-To-Eat snacks. Since then, MTR diversified as MTR foods and MTR restaurants. They even opened MTR department next to their restaurants where they sold MTR masalas. The restaurants have an outdated décor, as more focus was given to quality of food and cleanliness of the area. The customers need to walk through kitchen to enter the restaurant, this helped in building trust in customers. Over the period of time MTR has expanded its business in variety of products such as Ready- to- Cook gravies, range of frozen products, papads, pickles, snacks and ice-creams. The most interesting part is that they don’t add preservatives to food while packing as they have bought the packaging technology from The Defense Food Research Laboratory.

MARKETING MIX PERSPECTIVE OF MTR FOODS:

PRODUCT: MTR is involved in continuous innovation and produces product that satisfies customers’ needs and wants. MTR focused on “Quality and strength” by complying it with several regulatory bodies such as FSSAI (Food Safety and Standards Authority of India), TQM (Total Quality Management) including ISO 9000, ISO 22000 and GHP (Good Hygienic Practices) and GMP (Good Manufacturing Practices). This has helped to build trust and create value to customer.

PLACE: Place refers to distribution or channel for selling the products. Initially MTR FOODS used their own MTR Tiffin centers and then gradually expanded their presence to other retail shops. It’s products are exported to many countries like Japan, Mauritius, Singapore, Malaysia, New Zealand, Australia, Germany, UK, Canada and United States. And now they are even available on e-commerce platforms.

PROMOTION: MTR is pursuing intensive and aggressive marketing strategy all over the world, it has launched Ad campaigns on magazines, televisions, social media, newspapers and has organized sampling activities at popular places to garner maximum coverage and increase brand visibility.

PRICE: Price is a revenue generating factor whereas all others are cost inculcating factors so It is considered as a critical one. It has adopted market penetration pricing policy and has implemented reasonable rates for its products. This will help the company in reaching further markets. They have also implemented promotional policies and incentive offers like 20% extra product with original. The Fifth P is ‘packaging’ which is already dominated by MTR.