Plateful of Profits

La Opala has done well to dominate a market once considered a domain of only foreign brands.

- Anik Basu

Company annual reports do not usually flaunt fancy book titles. Those of the Kolkata-based La Opala RG Ltd (LORL), makers of opal glass tableware, usually do. The latest annual report vaunts a stylishly-embossed legend, “The New Family Silver”.

It is perhaps a metaphor for a new middle-class India where sleek is in, dowdy is out, something that excites Sushil Jhunjhunwala, Vice Chairman and Managing Director, La Opala. “We want people to stop using steel utensils,” he says. “Ours is an aspirational brand.”

And it is happening. Opal glass tableware from La Opala, shortlisted as one of the “most trusted brands” in the 2016 Brand Trust Report, is being lapped up by buyers looking for low-priced branded crockery. “There is a shift in customers’ preference towards LORL products,” says a research note from brokerage house Nirmal Bang

Securities. Salony Nangia, President, Technopak, a consultancy, says, “The brand bridges the gap between steeland melamine-based ranges and fine bone china.”

LORL is also focusing on crystal ware, being designed under Executive Director Nidhi Jhunjhunwala. “I was always inclined towards art, and when I got married into the Jhunjhunwala family, I got an opportunity to explore my interests in the business.” Exports account for about 75 per cent of La Opala’s crystalware sales. “Since ours is 100 per cent handcrafted crystalware, it is in great demand in the US,” says Jhunjhunwala.

Nirmal Bang says La Opala will “sustain healthy growth.” Jhunjhunwala expects 15-20 per cent volume growth this financial year. Sara Jaffer, Research Associate, Institutional Equities at Nirmal Bang, says La Opala opalware accounts for 60 per cent of the ₹450-crore market.