An Oasis of ceramics

From modest beginnings in a small town in Maharashtra, Oasis Ceramics has shown impressive growth in a short frame of time. Its managing director, Ashwin Shah, speaks to Express Hospitality about the journey so far.

Set up in 1996 in Jalgaon, Oasis Ceramics, manufacturer of bone China tableware has grown by leaps and bounds. This immense growth has enabled it to tap not only national but international markets. Rich and crisp experience of over 40 years in crockery and climbing the ladder up from a retailer to a wholesaler to a manufacturer has been a an evolutionary journey for Ashwin Shah, its managing director. Today, Oasis has successfully penetrated into all market segments right from domestic to international to hotelware and houseware to institutional.

Oasis has bagged the Air India order to supply in-flight crockery for its business and first class passengers for the second consecutive year. It is also a supplier to many other leading institutions like Novartis, Amul, Godrej, Castrol, Parryware, Gati, LIC, NIFT, Punjab National Bank, Union Bank of India, State Bank of India - the list goes on. It supplies to major elite hotels like The Orchid, Holiday Inn, Ramada Plaza Palm Grove, Rodas, The Ambassador, Grand Hyatt, Taj Land's End, Taj President, Lotus Suites, The Resort, Eastern International Hotel, The Retreat, Goa Portuguese Restaurant and others. Recently, Oasis launched a new series in bone China hotelware adding to its list of range including Java Square, Citi Square, Lily Square, Mega Square, Lotus, Triangular, Plaza, Athens, Victoria apart from the evergreen super hits like Georgian and Urmi.

Shah adds, "Our fascination for innovation and our intense drive to satisfy our customers and supply them with superior quality products has been one of the other major factor for this tremendous growth."

Importance of delectable foodware

Today, it is not only important for the hotel industry to cook mouthwatering delicious food stuff but also to serve it in equally complementary foodware. Significance of foodware is at least at par with the ambience of a hotel, if not more. Bone China is the most preferred and expensive foodware and has become a norm in all five-star hotels and other specialty restaurants. It has become a prominent status symbol. These hotels even get their Bone China ware designed and decorated to match their ambience and accessories like cutlery, glassware, tablemats and so on. Taking all these factors into consideration and acknowledging the eminence given to foodware, Oasis drives all its efforts into ensuring that the best product reaches its customers. Thus, complete and complicated quality checking is diligently performed on each and every piece that goes out into the market.

However, in order to keep on growing in all respects, Oasis is coming up with a massive mega project to multiply its existing manufacturing capacity by a factor of five. This step has taken shape at Ankleshwar in Gujarat where a strong effort is made to go beyond its superior quality and efficient service, attempting to manufacture Bone China with state-of-the-art production facilities. Bone hardly needs any introduction; it is basically more artistic involving more hands than machines. However, at Ankleshwar there is a perfect blend of incorporating advanced machinery and sophisticated technology with natural irreplaceable hand artwork. The result is best quality with much more efficiency in production catering to the needs of international markets. This unit will be export-oriented and will make available export quality fine Bone China products to the domestic market. There are many other remarkable features of this project, one being its eco-friendly, pollution-free production facilities, striving to ensure that no damage is done to the environment. Another feature is a total dust-free concealed production unit. This will ensure excellent work environment for its employees. This master plan for a clean internal and external manufacturing environment will have advantages right from its customers to employees to splendid spotless products.

India has witnessed a rise in overall standard of living of people and a sharp rise in their disposable income. It has also witnessed a growth in demand for consumer products. The tourism industry is flourishing like never before and the demand for Bone China in hotels has spurred up big time. Oasis has taken all these factors into consideration and the aim of the project is to tap this huge evolving immature market potential and providing it with products suiting tastes and needs of the new and future generation.

According to Shah, Oasis has also acquired 25 per cent stake in a 27-year old London-based company Crown Trent UK, which markets its products all over the world. The Ankleshwar unit will be supplying the majority of its production to Crown Trent. The quality required by this market will be maintained thoroughly and Oasis will be ISO certified from day one in order to meet all the international standard parameters for Bone China producing units. Oasis’ Jalgaon unit already exports to Crown Trent since the past eight years. Oasis is the only Bone China manufacturing unit in the industrially advanced state of Maharashtra and thus an Oasis in true sense, drawing major east coast customers to it. There will be a new white Bone China Oasis in Gujarat in the near future.