Abhishek Law Britannia Industries, the country’s second largest food company, is strengthening its non-biscuit portfolio as it eyes greater penetration in the Hindi-speaking belts, Gujarat and South India.

While biscuits account for nearly 70 per cent of its turnover, adjacencies – primarily cakes, rusk, bread and dairy – together account for around 23 per cent of the sales. International business accounts for the remaining.

According to Jayant Kapre, Vice President & Head of Bread, Cake, Rusk & Adjacency, the company has already made in-roads into several non-traditional markets which were not open to offerings like cake or even bread. The idea now is to strengthen the portfolio and gain market share in these regions.

Going forward, the idea is for the biscuit and non-biscuit segments to have a 50:50 contribution tothe company’s turnover.

“We will focus on innovation as we launch new offerings focussing on adjacencies. Strategies will depend on markets we are targeting,” he told BusinessLine .

Changing strategies

For instance, tea cake eating is primarily an East Indian and partly West Indian phenomenon with Kolkata and Mumbai being dominant markets. So pushing cakes in the North India was difficult initially.

Britannia came up with the idea of vegetarian cakes (eggless) and small value packs or single serve packs of ₹5, 10 and were pushed and displayed in shops.

Similarly, in South India, where it faced stiff competition from traditional breakfast it pushed premium (high-margin) offerings like multi-grain bread.

“We are not going to invest in creating markets. That can happen at a later stage maybe,” Kapre said.

The big bet for Britannia is croissants. The company will launch the offerings by December, at competitive prices.

The company has a direct distribution reach across 1.84 million outlets and an overall reach in 5.2 million outlets. Rural distributors increased from 5,500 to 14,400.

Croissant business

Croissant could emerge a ₹200-250 crore business Britannia in two years, sources say. Cream wafers is another new launch on the anvil.

In the dairy business, Britannia will look at higher value added products. Sources say, milk based drinks in tetra-packs could be launched around September; and some cheese products too.

At present, Britannia has a presence in cheese, yogurt, beverages and dairy whiteners.

Tactical categories would be ghee and butter (since through dairy processing it will manufacture fat), Venkat Shankar, VP & head – Dairy Business, Britannia said.

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