Britannia Industries bets on ‘personal consumption packs’

CURRENT NEWS ABOUT BRITANNIA INDUSTRIES (4TH NOV 2009)

CHENNAI: Britannia Industries Ltd., a food major, has spotted a huge business opportunity in what it terms “personal consumption packs”. These are typically say small biscuit packs. Convenient to carry along, these are offered at affordable prices.

In an interview to The Hindu, Vinita Bali, Managing Director of Britannia Industries, said, “We are looking at consumption opportunities out of home.” How to make biscuits an impulse purchase like chocolate? A deep search for an answer to this question led the company to launch four-biscuit pack of Bourbon for Rs. 5. “It looks like chocolate. It has chocolate taste. That is what Bourbon is all about. That is what we call personal consumption pack,” she said. This ‘personal consumption pack’ business, according to her, “is tracking to be a Rs. 250-300-crore opportunity” for Britannia. She recalled her days in Cadbury when the sales flew as eclairs were put in jars. “The same thing happened in biscuits – we saw the sales flew,” she added.

The personal consumption packs or small packs were affordable and convenient, she said. The conventionally-designed ‘take-home packs’ comprised 17 to 18 biscuits and are priced high. “One usually looks for something substantial to eat when out of home,” she said. They often found the ‘take-home packs’ too much to eat.

“That is why people were not buying those take-home packs,” she reasoned. That was why Britannia came out with a product like Good Day at a price of Rs. 5. “In a country like India, there are more people at Rs. 5 price point than at Rs. 50 price point. It is the frequency and velocity — a lot of people buying a little at a time — which adds up to a lot,” Ms. Vinita Bali pointed out.

Britannia’s biscuit brands such as Bourbon, Treat, Good Day and Tiger have Rs. 5 packs in different grammage ranging from 42 to 54, placed in jars at vantage points in bus and railway stations. Small packs, she said, was not just a rural phenomenon. It was very much a part of the urban phenomenon, she added.

She said Britannia brought the focus on functional aspects of its business. According to her, Britannia consciously moved to remove trans fats. The company, she said, also fortified its brands with micro-nutrients – iron in the case of Tiger. “If you look at Nutri Choice 5 grain, it has complex carbs like oats, ragi and a dash of honey as well. We just launched a cracker with ajwain and jeera, which is good for digestion,” she added.