Gits eyes new revenue streams to fuel growth in mixes and convenience foods

Company is now focussing on expanding its B2B vertical at home. In exports, Gits is now focussing on local populace, after successfully tapping Indian expatriates

Instant mix and convenience food maker, Gits Foods, is focusing on new revenue channels to propel its market share in the fast growing ready-to-cook (RTC) and ready-to-eat (RTE) space. The company currently enjoys a market share of 25 per cent in these segments currently.

On the domestic front, apart from coming up with new products and variants targeting the retail consumer, it is now focussing on expanding its business-to-business (B2B) vertical. On the export front, Gits is now focussing on the local populace, after successfully tapping Indian expatriates.

Sahil Gilani, director of sales and marketing at Gits Foods, said that owing to the emergence of cloud kitchen and food delivery platforms such as Swiggy, Zomato and Uber Eats, the quick service restaurants (QSRs) and hotels are registering a boom and quicker delivery calls for RTC products tailored to meet such restaurants' needs.

Pioneer in the RTC-RTE space in the country, Gits has developed products exclusively targeting such QSRs and hotels and is rapidly building a client base in this space.

“Previously, we had one sales team that focussed on selling products to both modern as well as general trade. Now, we have three parallel independent sales teams focussing on general trade, modern trade and the B2B business,” Gilani said.

B2B currently accounts for only 10 per cent of the company’s business, but given the low base, Gilani expects a near 60 per cent growth rate going forward.

Modern trade, alongwith the online business, accounts for another 20 per cent of the business which is currently growing at 50 per cent a year. The rest comes in from the general trade channels.

On the export front, Gilani is now targeting the local populace in UK, US, Canada and other geographies and is also rolling out new products targeting these potential consumers.

“The major demand on the export front is for the RTE category rather than mixes. The British, Americans, Canadians and others prefer organic and vegan food and our products to these markets cater to those requirements. There is also a demand for superfoods now, like brown rice and flaxseed, among others,” Gilani said.

Gits exports to more than 40 countries, but North America, UK, West Asia and Australia make up for the majority of its sales. Such exports contribute 40 per cent to its annual turnover.

The company has also started aggressively selling its products to large-format retail businesses such as Cosco, Tesco and Walmart, among others.

Gilani expects the Rs 10 billion RTC-RTE market to grow at 12-15 per cent a year and is seeks to outpace the current market growth rate.

Gits, which has recently entered the dairy segment in Maharashtra with liquid pouch milk and ghee, is also upping its current 21,600 tonne-per-annum production capacity in its plant in Hadapsar, Pune, and the land just adjacent to its existing plant has already been acquired. This plant produces 200,000 packets of mixes and RTE foods a day.

“As things start falling in place with the alternate channels of revenue, our market share is bound to improve further in the coming days,” Gilani concluded. 

— Gits has 25% market share with MTR accounting for a similar percentage

— 50% of the RTE-RTC market is dominated by local companies
— Gits opens new revenue streams via B2B business in India
— Penetrates large format retails like Tesco, Cosco, Walmart to boost foreign sales
— Launching organic and vegan foods for local populace in US, UK, Canada