Britannia Industries is gearing up for regional challenge: Varun Berry

The company has increased its rural distribution and now has up to 30,000 rural distributors

Britannia Industries has adopted a strategy to take on regional players.

“If there is something that’s required in a certain region in terms of brand, flavour, pricing and recipe, we are ready to do all of that to make sure we cater to that region. That's holding us in really good stead,” Varun Berry, vice-chairman (V-C) and managing director (MD) at Britannia Industries told investors during a conference call on Monday.

While talking about distribution, Berry said that in the Hindi belt, the company is currently lagging in comparison to its competition, especially in rural.

He added that the company’s strategy is depth in urban markets and width in rural. And, it will continue with that.

 

“On rural, the width expansion will keep going on, especially in the focus market. This is because we have a large gap in our market share and there is also an immense opportunity in distribution. Therefore, from a distribution perspective, those focus markets are very critical,” Vipin Kataria, chief commercial officer (CCO) at Britannia Industries said on the call.

The company has increased its rural distribution and has up to 30,000 such distributors.

While talking about rural, Berry said that it is starting to look a little better, but added that it is still not out of the woods.

Berry said he expects revenue from drinks to end the year at around Rs 200 crore and the cheese business could see revenues of over Rs 250 crore.

He added that its dairy business could be around Rs 700 crore.

The biscuit major had released its April-June quarter earnings last week and had reported a consolidated net profit of Rs 506 crore during the first quarter of FY25. This is up 10.5 per cent compared to the same period of the previous year due to better operating margins in the quarter. 

Britannia’s total revenue grew to Rs 4,130 crore in Q1 FY25 up 4 per cent compared to the same period last year. This was driven by high single-digit volume growth and improved operating margins over last year.

The biscuit major’s profit before interest, tax and depreciation was up 5.7 per cent at Rs 789 crore.