No ‘Midas’ touch: Sales of other breweries up

Once, sales orders from Tamil Nadu State Marketing Corporation (Tasmac) came pouring in for Midas, which also coincided with a dip in the sales of other liquor companies. When former chief minister J Jayalalithaa-led AIADMK came to power in 2011-12, the liquor orders from Tasmac to Midas, side-lined during the DMK reign in 2010, rose to a new high with 85.8 lakh cases being sold. 

A liquor case contains either twelve 750 ml full bottles, 24 half bottles of 350 ml, or 48 quarter bottles of 180 ml. Going by Tasmac’s latest indent, which is available with DT Next, the sales figure of Midas was further up in 2013-14 as Tasmac orders touched the one crore-mark, something that no other distillery was able to achieve. 

Like other distilleries, Midas produces ordinary, medium and premium brands of liquor. The statistics further said that the sales of Midas touched an alltime high of 1.12 crore cases in 2016-17 while other companies received lesser orders from Tasmac, the monopoly agency in the State to sell liquor. 

The peak business of Midas saw a sudden downfall as sales plunged to only 58 lakh cases in 2017-18, which was over 50 per cent dip in the sales. The business further dented when the sales witnessed an all-time low of just 16 lakh cases from April 2018 till January 2019. Soon after the slump in Midas’ sales, other distilleries began to secure more orders from Tasmac. This benefitted companies like GVATS, which enjoyed slightly better market share due to the downfall of Midas. GVATS’s sales, which was just 31 lakh, touched 44 lakh in 2018-19 (April-January). 

Likewise, SNJ Distilleries, owned by Jayamurugan, who produced the movies Penn Singam and Uliyin Osai , for which former chief minister late M Karunanidhi had penned the script, also maintains good sales now. While in 2012-13 its sales were only 57.6 lakh, it has skyrocketed to 78.18 lakh in 2018-19 (April-January). However, Tasmac sources blame the low liquor production of Midas for the reduction in orders.