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KOCHI, Feb. 1

THE Spices Board will undertake market studies in the US and Japan to promote Indian brands with the help of a Rs 1.5 crore Union Government aid.

Mr C.J. Jose, Chairman, Spices Board, told reporters that the board had proposed to the Union Government to support brand promotion schemes in five countries and the Government had sanctioned Rs one crore for undertaking market study in the US and Rs 50 lakh for the Japanese market. ``It is for the first time such an initiative is being made'', he said.

The study will take into account the current share of branded products in these markets, consumer preferences, tastes, packing and labelling requirements apart from recommending an appropriate strategy for entry and sustenance of Indian spice brands into these markets.

The aim of the programme was to encourage exports of Indian value-added and branded products into the retail markets. Focus was being given for products as spice powders, curry powders, ginger in brine, ginger derivatives, candies, sauces and vanilla-cured beans, said Mr Jose.

With the global popularity of the spicy Indian cuisine growing, the board is planning to promote it in a big way in important markets thereby augmenting the demand for spices. In markets where spices were sparsely used, the culinary, dietary and medicinal properties of the spices would be promoted in a big way, he said.

Apart from popularising the cultivation and processing of vanilla, the board is in the process of creating a marketing outlet for organic spices. The country had already started exporting organic black and white pepper, cardamom, chillies, cloves, nutmeg and mace, ginger, turmeric and vanilla. A new set of organic spice exporters had emerged and exports were mainly taking place to countries in Europe, he said.

The board had also taken initiatives in promoting cultivation of organic herbs in a big way in the potential areas of the Nilgiris district in Tamil Nadu. Similar exercises were also going on the tribal belt of Orissa, Assam, Manipur and Nagaland for ginger and turmeric and in Kerala's Idukki and Wayanad districts for pepper and cardamom, he said.

He said the board had launched a new scheme for supporting clinical trials of spice products and derivatives as part of the new initiative to promote value added exports. Under the scheme, evaluation of the efficacy of five various herbal formulationswere recently approved and if the findings were positive, research to enable marketing them as drugs would also be supported. The board would also support patenting of such products, he said.

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