Dairy firm Heritage Foods looks East in line with pan-India ambition

Heritage Foods is spreading its footprint in the East in sync with its ambition to become a pan-Indian private dairy company.

On Wednesday, the company announced its foray into West Bengal and over the next few days, Bihar and Jharkhand are on the cards.

In Odisha, Heritage launched its products about six to nine months back.

Srideep, M Kesavan, chief executive officer (CEO), said East had the lowest per capita consumption of dairy.

“But in the last few years, the region has emerged as the fastest-growing market. This is the growth market that we want to capture.”

These are building blocks to the company’s target of achieving revenue of Rs 6,000 crore in three years.

In FY24, Heritage clocked consolidated revenue of Rs 3,793.9 crore.

Heritage’s products are sold across 12 states in India.

The company has 18 milk processing facilities with a total processing capacity of 2.78 million litres per day (MLPD).

And, it works with more than 300,000 dairy farmers for milk procurement across nine states.

 Kesavan said that post-Covid, a focus on healthier products has had a rub-off effect on the dairy industry. In the last three years, Heritage has grown at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 17 per cent, he pointed out.

Heritage was founded in 1992 by Nara Chandrababu Naidu.

Naidu’s sweeping win in the Assembly and Lok Sabha elections had quite an effect on the Heritage stock.

Heritage Foods’ stock zoomed from a level of Rs 426 a piece on June 3 to a high of Rs 727 on June 10 (post-election results), before settling at Rs 550.

On Wednesday, it closed at Rs 554.80 on the National Stock Exchange (NSE).

“We would like the stock price to be justified by the company earnings. We have consistently delivered on the results, especially since Covid,” Kesavan added.

He said the company maintains the highest standard of corporate governance.

“Our founder was in politics even before the company came into being. He was very clear that it should be independent of his political career, and after two years since its inception, the company was listed.”

The company is led by Naidu’s wife, Bhuvaneswari Nara, vice-chairperson and managing director, who holds 24.37 per cent stake in the company. The total promoter holding is 41.3 per cent.