Britannia to import raw sugar to tide over shortage

"We will import raw sugar since we are allowed 15-days stock only," Wadia said on the sidelines of the company's AGM here. Asked about the future outlook, he said that it all depends on the monsoon.

Later, Managing Director of Britannia Vinita Bali said that maintaining margins was a great challenge for the company in these times. Not only sugar, which was a crucial input for the biscuit major, prices of other ingredients had also gone up.

She said that the idea to import sugar was to secure requirement of the commodity.
The company, Bali said, would invest in infrastructure and Rs 120 crore to build capacity at the backend to service market demand.

Bali said that in the last four years, the company had been able to register a CAGR of 22 per cent topline growth, adding that Rs 1,400 crore had been added to overall turnover during the period. Britannia, she said, would invest in the six power brands in the biscuit portfolio, which constituted 75 per cent of the overall basket. Biscuits contributed to around 80 per cent of the company's total sales. On the dairy business, Bali said that the division had been notching up a revenue of Rs 200 crore.

The dairy business, managed by its wholly-owned subsidiary Britannia New Zealand Foods Private Limited, has recently launched new products with low fat content. Meanwhile, the company had moved a special resolution for issue of bonus debentures to the existing shareholders in the ratio 1:1 at a face value of Rs 170 by utilising the general reserves of the company.

Bali said that the idea to issue bonus debentures was to restructure the general reserves keeping in view the future capex plan of the company. She said that the company had been exporting biscuits from its production bases in the Middle East.