Mother's Recipe looks to taste Rs 500 crore turnover

Mother’s Recipe, a household name for pickles in India, has set out on a culinary trail of sorts, wanting to savour a robust turnover of Rs 500 crore over the next three years.

The brand — owned by Pune’s Desai Brothers — boasts  a turnover of over Rs 200 crore, with presence in 12 categories, namely pickles, cooking paste, ready-to-fry, ready-to-cook spice mixes, instant mixes, chutneys (for the domestic market), and spice powders, simmering sauces, canned products, ready-to-eat, canned veggies, and pickled gherkins (for the international market).

“We have different products for different regions. According to demand, we select the most popular dish or preparation, and manufacture products catering to that demand. In India, though the prepared meals and culinary category is highly unorganised, the branded market is eating into the unbranded pie. Better convenience, higher income, time management, and surity of product quality may be the reasons,” P Rajan Mathews, Vice President (Marketing and Sales), Desai Brothers — Food Division (Mother’s Recipe), told Deccan Herald.

The company has been a big player in the Rs 1,000-crore pickles market in India, of which, only 45% share is served by organised players. Of the 126 varieties of pickles that are made in India, Mother’s Recipe produces 47 varieties, holding 25% share in the organised segment.   

Talking about Mother’s Recipe’s push into newer avenues of the food space, Mathews said, “We are working towards consumer convenience in terms of innovation — in form and presentation, with plans to launch new products as we see demand. We are looking at new markets for products, such as the mayonnaise category with our brand Spread On, a couple of years down the line. We’re also looking at getting into manufacturing spreads.”

The company recently acquired the brand ELMAC for Rs 20 crore, which has catapulted it into the food services business — selling sauces, ketchup and spreads to hotels and restaurants. “We are investing around Rs 5 crore in the ELMAC facility in Kolkata towards automation. While we have a factory in Pune, a second plant is coming up in Nadiad, Gujarat, mostly for the export market, by the end of this year. We are investing another Rs 10 crore in the new plant,” Mathews said, adding that the plan is to grow 25% year on year.