In order to boost the demand of teas of the northeast, Tea Board India in association with Indian Chamber of Commerce (ICC) organised a webinar with a focus on Uttar Pradesh recently.
The underlying principles behind organising the webinar were to develop networking opportunities and generate the requisite business leads for the tea sellers of the North East.
This is the first virtual meet of the series of 4 meets to be organised for Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand and Odisha markets.
The meet attracted wholesalers and retailers from the UP and NCR Region so that they engage in hardcore business with the sellers from the northeast.
The objective was to convert low-tea drinking states of India into promising markets– where the potential for consumption of tea is high.
This was an effort to increase demand for teas from the northeast including Assam and making their tastes, flavour, aroma & health-giving properties available in the non-tea growing states having low PCC such as UP, Jharkhand, Bihar, Odisha which is envisaged to be crucial for the survival of the sector.
It was an attempt of Tea Board and ICC to aggressively promote and tea brands from the northeast in the domestic and international markets.
Further, tea is the official state drink of Assam, which is going to complete 200 years of its existence in 2023 and this message is being widely circulated in every possible manner.
MK Saharia, Chairman, ICC, Northeast, said that tea has been an industry which gives direct employment to 1.3 million peoples half of them being women apart from traders, brokers, packeters and retailers.
It is a sector with great employment opportunity not only in the northeast but also in UP.
“Also tea industry spends the highest amount in social welfare of the employees,” he said.
“With the right policy of govt and private players India can regain its dominant position in the international market surpassing countries like Kenya and Sri Lanka,” he further said.
PK Bezbaruah, Chairman, Tea Board India & Co-Chairman, ICC Northeast mentioned that normally there is always a price war going on among the UP packeters.
“Actually it is a downward spiral which will result in lowest profit for everyone,” he said.
He gave the example of UK supermarkets which went into price hike and ended up being bankrupt.
“If the UP packeters focus on high-quality tea then there is tremendous scope of capping the market with rising income of the middle class. It will also result in increased profits,” he added.
KK Dwivedi, Commissioner & Secretary, Assam, highlighted that the Assam government has always been giving special attention to the tea industry.
“Assam government will be giving a special package to tea planters producing speciality tea like green tea, organic tea, white tea etc,” he said.
The Deputy Chairman of Tea Board of India PK Sahoo stressed popularizing Assam Tea as it is world-famous and it is not simply a drink made from some green leaves but a healthy beverage for the human life.