Britannia unveils new logo, will launch 50 products to celebrate centenary

Britannia Industries is looking at acquisitions and expansions into new geographies, Chairman Nusli Wadia said on Monday, launching a new logo to commemorate the company’s centenary.

“We have now got a very strong foundation --- not only in terms of financials but in terms of a management team. We are on a very strong footing and now in a position to look at adjacencies,” Wadia said at the company’s Annual General Meeting.

He stressed that the strategy will be based on “growing the company substantially” and expanding into new geographies. 

The company, which has a presence in more than 79 countries, is in the process of opening a plant in Nepal, where it has already become the market leader after its recent entry. It is also eyeing expansions across West Asian and North African markets. 

Unveiling the new logo, Wadia said it was “not completely different from our old logo”, explaining that the brand heritage will be carried forward even as the logo got a modern look. 

Britannia logo

Managing director Varun Berry said this year more than 50 products will be launched to celebrate 100 years of the company. 

The company is already in the process of launching croissants and has partnered with Greece-based Chipita for this endeavour. 

Its 2018 annual report said, “…the intention will be to launch products which also target the same snacking occasions that we target today but with new and innovative products”.

Answering a shareholder’s query, Berry said Britannia was the market leader in biscuits with a 33 per cent share in terms of value and had overtaken Parle. But in terms of sales volume, Parle rules the market. Also, Parle G still dominates the market in terms of the volume of brands and it will take two-three years for Britannia to overtake the Parle G brand with Good Day. 

The company has set a target to evolve into a complete foods company rather than limiting itself to biscuits, cakes, rusks, cakes and dairy products. 

Wadia said that despite the demonetisation exercise and GST woes in the last financial year, the company “hit every single target”.  It had set a target to sell 50 million packs every day, churn a Rs 100 billion topline with a Rs 15 billion gross profit and Rs 10 billion net profit.