Ready to look at acquisitions if they make sense: Nusli Wadia, Chairman, Britannia

As it turns 100, biscuits and bakery major Britannia Industries is looking at new businesses beyond its comfort zone and may go for acquisitions.

“After putting the company on strong financial and management footings, we are now ready and poised to look at businesses outside of our adjacencies and able to look at acquisitions if they make sense. We have the strength in terms of balance-sheet and people to do it,” chairman Nusli Wadia told shareholders.

“Going forward, we will grow Britannia substantially, expand our geographies and business opportunities, for which we already have a plan which we will roll out in not too distant future,” Wadia said at the 99th annual general meeting of the firm.

The brand that successfully drove premiumisation of the staid biscuits, would be aggressively launching new brands and variants in the next six months. “Britannia is driving innovation of which you will see a lot in next six months,” he said.

Among new things that are being worked on include products like flavoured breads, croissants in joint venture with Chipita of Greece, cream wafers, centre filled muffins among others, Jayant Kapre, head of bread, rusk and adjacency products told DNA Money.

In dairy, Britannia has big plans with host of products currently being rolled out under Winkin Cow brand while milks in tetra packs will hit shelves by September, said Venkat Shankar, head of dairy.

A large milk processing plant has already been planned in Maharashtra, which, however, may be shifted to Andhra Pradesh.

“We are waiting for a year for the incentive scheme from the Maharashtra government for our planned milk dairy plant at Ranjangaon. However, the government is delaying the approval of the scheme, we might have to shift the project to Andhra Pradesh,” Wadia told reporters after the meeting. An investment of Rs 300 crore has been planned for the plant, including cold chain network across the country, he said.

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A pilot for milk procurement has been taken up in Maharashtra, which has a size of four lakh litre a day.
“Once the plant is set up and reaches scale, we would touch 20 times that size,” Venkat Shankar said. Reaching scale for existing brands is also a focus area.

Source: DNA Money