iD Fresh Food may have fermented a reputation for itself as the batter king of India, but MTR Foods, a giant in the field of dosa and idli dry mixes, is grinding big plans.

Last month, MTR waded into wet batter with a cheeky campaign making a dig at the category leader for offering the same batter for the two different dishes. It described how its MTR Minute Fresh range has a separate dosa batter, idli batter and Signature (Red Rice) Dosa batter. 

 Isn’t it a rather late entry to the field by the 98 year old company? But Sanjay Sharma, CEO, MTR Foods points out, the ongoing pandemic and resultant lockdown has heightened the demand for hyper-convenient food products. “We believe that we are entering the market at the right time when the demand for the wet batter category is building. We are certain of our growth in this category, which will be much faster than our peers or other existing local brands available in the market currently,” he said. 

MTR Foods is starting off from its home base of Bangalore, which is also the city with the biggest demand for batter in the country. “Before rushing into expansion, we want to standardize this business, understand the supply chain and learn from challenges. We would look at expanding in other cities in subsequent years. We are expecting the revenue to go up to Rs 100 crore from MTR Minute Fresh in the next 3-4 years,” Sharma added.

According to industry estimates, annual consumption of idli-dosa batter is valued at over ₹4,000 crore though it is dominated by small, local players. The big brands have just a 5-10 per cent share though they are seeing growth with the category itself expanding. 

 Says Rahul Gandhi, Chief Marketing Officer, iD Fresh Food, which serves 35 cities in India as well as the UAE, “We expect to double our batter business in the next 18-24 months. On an average, we are seeing a growth of 50-60 per cent in this business. In markets, such as Delhi, where we were historically not present earlier, the growth rate is 100 per cent year-on-year.” 

In a market like Delhi, he says, the company is doing business of about ₹1 crore a month just from e-commerce alone, and will be expanding to other channels in the city when restrictions ease. 

He said the company is seeing very high adoption in North and West regions but its focus is growing the South which he describes as the mecca of idli and dosa. Gandhi points that the batter business can expand in many directions – either using the health route by changing ingredients or innovations. “We have products such as ragi batter, rice-rava batter and multi-grain batter and innovations such as a pakora batter,” he said.

New opportunities

Meanwhile, smaller localised players are spotting new opportunities too. In Kochi, for instance, Jesluck Peter, proprietor of HomeSpring which entered the batter business in 2008, describes how many in the state have branched into appam batter. He estimates that the batter business in Kerala is growing at a CAGR of 10-15 per cent with 4 lakh to 6 lakh packets sold per day. 

Tom Jose of Seras Foods in Kochi said that the commissioning of InfoPark in Kochi a decade back has contributed a lot in growing the business as office goers, especially techies in the city, find it convenient.

The batter business, which is mainly city centric, is slowly spreading into rural areas as well, he says. As the stores stock more varieties of batter, no longer is the ubiquitous noise of grinders heard so much within homes. 

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