RP-Sanjiv Goenka Group's Guiltfree to launch 15 products across categories

The group picked up a controlling stake in Apricot Foods, which owns the Evita brand, at an enterprise value of Rs 4.4 bn

A new entrant into the FMCG market, the RP-Sanjiv Goenka Group-owned Guiltfree Industries, will be launching at least 15 new products across different categories under the Too Yumm brand, which is expected to shore up its revenue from this venture to Rs 8 billion in the 2018-19 fiscal year. 

In the next two months, the company is expected to launch three new products and another five more under different categories will be launched before March 31, 2018. For the remainder of this calendar year, another 7-8 more products will be launched.

“There will be at least 15 new product launches by the end of the coming financial year for sure. We have been working at it for a while,” Sanjiv Goenka, the company’s chairman, said.

Currently, Too Yumm offers only two product categories — foxnuts and veggie sticks. 

“You’ll see other food items being introduced but not restricted to it. Research is going on multiple things”, he added. It also plans to acquire smaller local companies to grow the FMCG business. One acquisition in the food space is likely to be announced shortly. If it materialises, it would be the second acquisition in the FMCG business.

July last year, the group picked up a controlling stake in Apricot Foods, which owns the Evita brand, at an enterprise value of Rs 4.4 billion.

According to Goenka, the new launches and the company’s expansion plan of the sales points will translate into an earning of Rs 8 billion in the next fiscal year. During 2017-18, when it is registering a 10 per cent month-on-month growth, the company hopes to churn around Rs 3.6 billion from the FMCG venture.

It is also working towards strengthening its distributorship network and currently has around 50,000 sales points which is likely to go up to 0.15 million by the end of the 2017-18 fiscal year.

“By June this year, we’ll get it to 0.3 million outlets”, Goenka said.

It is also expanding the range of flavours in the existing product range and will be launching Spanish tomato, caramel and rice kheer variants of foxnuts and another salt & lime flavour of veggie sticks.

Goenka reasoned that this way, once the company starts offering a varied range of flavours, a hitherto potato chips buyer can be converted into its brand of foxnuts and veggie sticks and the consumer will not feel bored of eating the same flavour time and again.

The company is also working towards leveraging Too Yumm’s distribution chain nationally for its Evita range of products which is currently confined to Gujarat, Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh and other states.

While another 50 products have been lined up for launch under the Evita portfolio over the coming few years, Guiltfree Industries is working towards strengthening the manufacturing capability of the Evita plants.

“We are starting a new factory in Telangana across 27 acres for an investment of Rs 2 billion by October this year. Evita has two factories — one in Rajkot and one in Hyderabad — we are expanding both factories”, he said.

This calendar year, the company will be investing another Rs 2 billion besides the Telangana plant.

Eventually, in the mid-term, the company will have 7-8 plants to roll out FMCG-related products.

Earlier, Goenka had stated that the group would trim its focus on power generation business and focus more on the FMCG and power distribution front. A subsequent restructuring programme to further it, has received the requisite approvals from the Sebi and the company’s board and shareholders, and is awaiting the nod from the NCLT.

The group is also looking at expanding its other new venture, retail and scouting for land in Kolkata to come up with its mall in the city that could in the luxury to the premium segment. Also, it will be repositioning Quest Mall “one notch higher” in the city by incorporating new brands like Tod's, Coach in the near term to the already existing luxe list of Gucci, Burberry, Canali, Michael Kors, Emporio Armani. By 2020, it will be working towards bringing in Louis Vuitton and Zegna.