MTR Company – Dynamic Marketing

Introduction

MTR Food is a Successful Company due to continuous marketing activities by focusing on the customer’s requirements and creating products satisfying the customer’s needs wants and demands. In past MTR foods (erstwhile MTR Tiffins) was doing marketing activity in emergency situations by introducing new and different products as MTR masala powders. It shows that the legacy of the MTR company as Marketing Orientation by catering to needs of Customers and providing products matching with their needs.

Its a reality that any company or business entity doesn’t operate in isolation but driven by environment parameters known as PESTEL or SLEPT factors. S-Social, L-Legal, E-Economical, P-Political T-Technological.

MTR Foods operated in the food industry environment with quality as a product or USP to attract and retain customer. Any company or business unit is successful in strategy when it is able to map its internal resources with external environment and create value for Customers in the process revenue to the company. In this context, MTR company has legacy of “Marketing strategy thinking” in the food industry for seven and a half decades.

Here is an illustration of the MTR company’s ability to identify opportunity from the dynamic external environment (SLEPT) and providing a gamut of successful business reorientations by evolutions from MTR Tiffin’s MTR Foods by creating products like Ready-To-Make (RTM) Masala ingredients, Ready to cook (RTC) like upma, idle, dosa etc.

We can say that MTR is a Marketing marvel because of it’s ability to understand the industry environment demand drivers that dominates food industry i.e. food habits and food consumption of consumer , and based on that, and based on that, was able to create appropriate the marketing mix elements -4Ps Product, Price place, and promotion. We explore and understand the MTR as a marketing marvel case in the above context.

Company Evolution MTR Foods- Mavalli Tiffin Rooms to MTR Foods

The Mavalli Tiffin Rooms (commonly known as MTR) is the brand name of a food-related enterprise located in India. Having its origin in the city of Bangalore, it has a restaurant located on the Lal Bagh Road in Bangalore and 6 other branches in the City, as well as one each in Singapore, Dubai, and Muscat. MTR also claims to be the inventor of the popular South-Indian brothers in 1924. In the mid-1970s when India was under emergency, a Food control Act was introduced

Which mandated that food was to be sold at very low prices. This move made it difficult for MTR to maintain high standards in restaurant business and forced it to diversify into the instant food business, selling ready-to-eat snacks such chutneys and Rassams. Since the 1970s, MTR has expanded and diversified, with MTR Department stores opened next to the restaurant, and an outlet opened in Chennai. Currently the MTR brand represents two separate entities; the MTR restaurant business and MTR Foods, the pre-packaged food business. MTR restaurants is a vegetarian restaurant located in Bangalore, India. It was founded in 1924. It has also been featured of television in the global travel-related series, Globe Trekker. The food served at the MTR is a regular wholesome Karnataka. The decor is outdated, as more attention is paid to cleanliness and food quality than ambiance. For many years, the customers entered the restaurant through the kitchen so that they would be able to satisfy themselves about the restaurant’s cleanliness before they ate there.

During World War-II, MTR Found it difficult to make idlis since rice was in short supply. According to MTR, they experimented with semolina instead of rice and thus invented the very popular breakfast item of Rava idli. MTR also holds a record of being the first fast food restaurant in the world to serve 21,000 customers in seven hours. MTR restaurant is currently headed by Hemamalini Maiya, Vikram Maiya, and Arvind Maiya (grand children of Yajna Narayana Maiya) one uniqueness of this restaurant is that silver tumblers are used to serve beverages.

This Restaurant was closed in the period of Indian Emergency (mid 1970s) when the food control Act made it non-profitable to serve food items until it was reopened in 1984. To save the jobs during the time it was closed, MTR started selling spices and roasted flour mixes. That was the beginning of its entry into the convenience and instant food business, and in a sense, a turning point. MTR Foods was headed by Sadanand Maiya (Son of Yaja Narayanan Maiya ) until it was sold to Orkla, a Norwegian company for $80 million in March 2007. It produces packaged foods in different ranges- spices, instant mixes, ready-to-eat foods, vermicelli, ready -to-cook gravies, range of frozen products, papads,pickles,chips,snacks, and ice creams. It bought the packaging technology from the defiance food Research Laboratory in Mysore and there are no preservatives added to the food while packaging, MTR is also the first Indian processed foods company to be certified with the Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point (HACCP) certification which is a rigorous standard of food safety and Hygiene. It has also been sponsoring magic shows and theatre performances a means of giving live demonstrations of their products and to hand out free samples to the audience. MTR Foods is also the first company in the world to have created frozen dosa, which can be heated and eaten right away.MTR food products are exported to the countries in the Persian Gulf, United states, and United Kingdom. It is believed that MTR is the one who brought the first ice cream vending machine in India.