Diversified conglomerate ITC is looking at portfolio expansion in its food division to achieve the stated vision of the company of achieving Rs 1 trillion turnover from FMCG.
“The ambition set by our Chairman and Managing Director of Rs 1 trillion by 2030 is something we are all working towards, with current categories as well as new categories that we are getting into,” Hemant Malik, Divisional Chief Executive – Foods Division, ITC told PTI
According to a PTI report: The food category, which drives the fast moving consumer durable industry, is expected to contribute around 60-65 percent of its turnover by 2030.
The revenue generated from ITC’s foods business, is below Rs 9,000 crore although consumer spend is in excess of Rs 12,000 crore, with the difference due to seller discounts offered by the company.
“We are looking at the dairy space. It is a huge space, and we have launched in a few markets. We will be launching dairy beverages in a couple of months. In the snack category also there are many areas where we haven’t started operating in. We will be exploring health space in snacking shortly. In juices, we launched 100 percent pomegranate and we will be adding more,” he further told PTI.
ITC recently announced it will augment its dairy portfolio by entering the paneer and milkshakes segments and is planning to launch paneer for the Kolkata market and milkshakes pan India within two months.
While milk, ghee, paneer and curd would be sold under the ‘Aashirvaad’ brand, there will be a different brand for milk shakes. The Kolkata-headquartered company is also planning to sell millets.
The company that acquired floor cleaner brand Nimyle, fruit beverage brand B Natural and antiseptic brand Savlon, reportedly backed out of the US$ 4 billion bid for GlaxoSmithKline’s healthdrink brand Horlicks.
Asked if the company would look at the inorganic route to fuel its growth, Malik told PTI, “Every third day there is an offer on table which we have to study and then decide if it has any merit in our overall scheme of things. Sometimes evaluation could be too high and if its worth it at this price then its okay otherwise if that category is so interesting we might as well build it. We have built so many categories, we will build two more.”
ITC has also tied-up with online grocery player Bigbasket to launch four new variants of its instant noodle brand Yippee.
Malik said Yippee is a Rs 1,000 crore brand at present today after being launched over seven years ago, enjoying a 22 percent market share.
He told PTI online as a channel accounts for 1.4 percent of the sales but it is growing at 120 percent.
