The East India Company, one of the world’s oldest and best-known brand names, has returned to the UK high street with a range of luxury foodstuffs and products, 153 years after it ceased trading in 1857.
To assist in the re-launch of the historic brand, Smurfit Kappa Composites has designed and supplied a range of luxury food packaging utilising high-quality printed and foil-blocked, re-sealable tubes.
The company, originally created by royal charter from Queen Elizabeth I in 1600 and given a monopoly of English trade with Asia, has been resurrected by the UK based, Indian businessman Sanjeev Mehta, who intends to return it to a global presence.
Mr Mehta, who moved to the UK in the 1990s, is very proud to have acquired an 400-year-old brand, which is already known to millions of people around the world. At its peak, the East India Company employed one third of the total British workforce and was responsible for huge amounts of global trade.
Today, the company’s flagship store in Conduit Street in the West End of London, stocks over 350 products and 100 lines of fine foods, including teas, coffees, biscuits, jams and marmalades, chutneys, savoury marmalades, sauces, mustards, speciality sugars, oils, cordials, sweets, chocolates, fine wines, champagnes, gift sets, hampers and accessories sourced from around the world.
Smurfit Kappa Composites’ Nic Bridge comments: “Smurfit Kappa Composites is well known for its luxury tube packaging for spirits with a long track record of supplying many of the world’s best known distilleries. Our eye-catching printed tubes however have the ability to protect and promote any luxury food or gift product in a way that promotes a brand’s premium positioning.”
Smurfit Kappa Composites manufactured their first order for the premium quality range of sweet and savoury biscuits and luxury chocolates to coincide with the opening of The East India Company’s flagship Mayfair store, in August 2010.
The full range of luxury tubes consisted of 17 biscuit varieties, including Roquefort cheese cream and cherry, chocolate and chilli together with nine different types of indulgent chocolates. Two sizes of printed tubes were developed over a twelve-month period and further designs are currently in development.
The East India Company is planning to open more luxurious stores throughout the world, including Japan, the Middle East, Singapore, and the US.