A tasty tryst of tradition and technology

The name ‘MTR’ beats in the heart of household kitchens in Karnataka. Its epicurean ensemble of ingredients, spice mixes and recipe secrets, merge into some of the most traditional, time-honoured delights, lending their taste with authenticity and nostalgia.

While the 85-year-old brand is still young today, it has reinvented itself over the last decade, as it was acquired by the diversified Orkla Group of Norway.

How this household name emerged as a global contemporary brand, lies in the organisational and technological steps it treads, while holding onto its traditional vibe.

MTR was acquired by Orkla in February 2007, with P Sadananda Maiya (who belonged to the family that founded MTR) running the company for the first two years.

One of the first investments that Orkla made with regard to MTR was in land purchases, and then into setting up a beverages business. “I came aboard in February 2009, quickly sensing the brand’s strong local heritage, with an even stronger potential to grow,” MTR Foods Chief Executive Officer Sanjay Sharma tells DH.

Around this period, MTR had already built a sizeably diversified portfolio, which included spices and masalas, ready mixes, vermicelli, pickles, papads, and a brand of softies and ice creams, which connected very strongly with consumers. It was a quintessentially diversified Indian food brand, with a huge following among South Indians.

“When Orkla came in, people might’ve felt that here comes a Norwegian company to change a ‘Kannadiga’ brand. The beauty of Orkla has been to operate through a ‘multi-local model’, which means that ‘it bought MTR to build MTR’. We were clear then that we want to build MTR into a stable, local company, ensuring that its entire talent was local,” Sharma says, stressing on the decentralisation and diversified methods of management within the company.

The acquisition helped MTR to hone its operations further with global best practices and approaches. At a very early stage, one of the aspects that the new management looked into was its people. “We recognised that we had a great team of talented, passionate people. We didn’t want to make too many changes in the company, but ensure optimal running with the same resources,” Sharma says.

Technology to taste

As a Bengaluru-based company, MTR is blessed with a favourable IT landscape. Computerisation at the company was at a reasonable level from the beginning. MTR began to emphasise on automation, apart from bringing in new technology. “This was also linked to the second area that ‘we won’t compromise on the safety of our products’,” Sharma says.

High quality-consciousness has been a hallmark of MTR. Even MTR restaurants offered visibility into the kitchen, reassuring patrons of the quality maintained and sustained as an ingrained value, which even Orkla shares. Also, investment in automation reduced physical handling of products.

Over a period of time, several changes were introduced in the company, with the first one being to contemporarise the brand and segment it in a meaningful manner. “While we had spices and masalas, there was another large category called instant mixes, which actually none could relate to. So we converted that into breakfast mixes and dessert mixes for people to understand. We also began to form the direction in which we wanted to grow, wherein we decided to operate in the traditional Indian food space, becoming a friend in the kitchen,” the CEO says.

Therefore, with a clear perspective, MTR defined itself as a ‘culinary brand’ wanting to help consumers make breakfast, lunch, dinner, snacks and dessert. This simplified the understanding of the company’s portfolio significantly, and it was able to build its business systematically. Even in terms of spending on advertising, what used to be 3% of turnover earlier, grew to 16% and beyond, as of today.

MTR has always been known for its innovation. It must be interesting to relate an anecdote: It is widely believed that the popular rava idli was invented by MTR during World War II as a substitute for the traditional rice idli, since rice was in short supply at that time. Lately, it has innovated relevant products such as the multi-grain dosa, ragi idli, oats idli, and so on. “In the first two to three years, we didn’t do much, but really started innovating from 2012 onwards. Between 2012 and 2016, we had close to 50 innovations, which have been introduced in the market,” informs Sharma.

New food, new flavours

The market today has a new set of consumers -- from the traditional homemaker to discerning millennials and professionals. Hence, there is a dichotomy in consumer products too. They seek the modern, but prefer the traditional.

“Brands like us bridge the gap between modern and traditional. While our products remain traditional, our delivery mechanism is modern. Our tone and manner of talking to consumers and packaging are modern. We are putting traditional in the centre, which is food, and enveloping it with very modern values. We still talk to homemakers via traditional advertising, while we are able to package quirky messaging through digital activation. All this is helping us bridge the gap,” he says.

Today, owing to new customer segments, MTR has an expansive product portfolio, with 450 SKUs, across 140 product ranges. Category-wise, 37% of MTR’s business comes from pure spices and blended spices (masalas), 32% from ready mixes (breakfast mixes 10%, sweet mixes 10%, dinner mixes 7%), 14% from vermicelli, and 7% from ready-to-eat, while SnackUp, pickles, and beverages, among others, contribute the remaining. Over 70% of the business comes from products made in Bengaluru, while some portion is contract-manufactured. As a comprehensive kitchen ingredients brand, MTR has come a long way. “We are investing in research. We have created a Centre of Excellence for Indian Food, where we have around eight chefs who are dedicated for this research. At the end of the day, the recipe is the most important element for us,” Sharma reflects.

One Orkla for MTR

MTR has benefitted from the One Orkla concept abundantly. Roughly, One Orkla refers to the strengths of Orkla being shared between all its entities, including by the Norwegian group itself, ensuring that they grow together.

“It was opportune to integrate One Orkla into MTR’s strategy and leverage the other firms’ strengths and learnings. For instance, we launched our vegetable idli mix (with 40% vegetables), which was inspired by a similar product launched in Denmark,” he says.

Recently, MTR enabled the launch of Orkla’s confectionery brand ‘Laban’ in India, however, suiting it to Indian preferences.

Will MTR be the face for Orkla in India? Sharma says that one must differentiate MTR as a brand, and as a company. “As a company, we like to host multiple brands in our portfolio. We are test-marketing with Jordan toothbrushes, and would diversify into more brands,” he adds. Going beyond snacks and food, whether with Orkla’s brands or its own, MTR will always look to localise, in tandem with its traditional roots.