Britannia Industries' consolidated revenue growth increased by 2% for the quarter at Rs 2,808 crore.
The consolidated Net Profit increased by 26% for the quarter at Rs 375 crore. As a result, for the financial year 19-20, the consolidated revenue grew by 4% at Rs 11,444 crore and consolidated Net Profit increased by 21% at Rs 1,403 crore.
Commenting on the performance, Varun Berry, MD, Britannia Industries, said, “After nine months of moderate growth, we started to see growth coming back in the first two months of this quarter which was then hit by Covid-19 and lockdown in March impacting the revenue and net profit growths by an estimated 7-10%. In this period, we continued to garner market share through our focus on the building blocks of distribution, diligence in marketplace and brand building through focussed product campaigns.”
He added, “On the cost front, we witnessed moderate inflation in the prices of key raw materials for the bakery business. Commodity prices at global level too witnessed moderation due to low demand on account of lockdown in most parts of the world. Our drive on cost efficiencies, reduction in wastages and ability to leverage fixed costs helped us improve the shape of our business and record a 40 bps increase in operating profit during the quarter despite the Covid-19 pandemic.”
Berry explained, “The pandemic impacted supply chain and operations of several businesses. While we faced some challenges in the first month of the lockdown, we recovered quickly & progressively liaised with the government to get approvals for operating all our factories and depots across the country. The team at Britannia rose to the occasion with exemplary work on defining & implementing Standard Operating Procedures on safety, hygiene & quality measures in factories, depots and in-market, laying down ways of working from home, ramping up production in a scenario of labour scarcity, optimising production planning, connecting with distributors, retailers and ensuring continuous supplies and actioning several cost reduction initiatives to manage the additional costs triggered by the crisis.”
During these tough times, the company along with the Wadia Group, provided 1.35 crore meal and meal equivalents and 90 lakh bakery packs to the less fortunate, especially migrants, across 19 states. This effort was led by the employees of all the Wadia Group companies.
“We are diligently studying the impact of Covid-19 on short-term & long-term changes in consumer preferences to adopt the learnings in our strategy going forward,” he said.