Bangalore-headquartered biscuit marker Britannia Industries has received approval from the Karnataka government on Thursday to set up a greenfield biscuits and bakery manufacturing unit on the outskirts of Bangalore.
The company will invest around Rs 100 crore to set up this unit according to the Karnataka government.
Earlier, Britannia had said that it would invest around Rs 200 crore in two to three years to set up greenfield units in various parts of the country to meet the growing demand for its products.
According to sources, the company is looking for setting up new units in Bihar and Odisha to ramp up its production base in the country.
As per government sources, Britannia will also set up a global research and development centre in this upcoming unit.
However, company officials were not available for comments on this issue. Presently, Britannia is facing tough challenge in various biscuit categories from ITC and Parle and is slowly diversifying into other food segments to further business growth. Recently, the company has entered into snacks category along with ready-to-eat breakfast mixes to increase its profitability.
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Also, it is also slowly increasing its capacity utilisation to increase the productivity of the company.
However, the focus of the company on premium categories yielded results last financial year.
“All our new product launches in premium category has received encouraging response from consumers. On the contribution side, our new categories have already started supporting the balance sheet during last fiscal,” a company official said.
The biscuit company has also said that exports of its products have witnessed double digit growth last fiscal and there is a sound momentum being seen in this front.
Britannia Industries has posted a 30 per cent rise in its net profit to Rs 134.3 crore on a consolidated basis in the last financial year on the back of sound growth in sales volume.
The total sales of the company increased 22 per cent to Rs 4,605 crore during this period.
Meantime, the company has posted a 62 per cent rise in its operating profit to Rs 185.36 crore compared with Rs 114.47 crore reported a year earlier.