Britannia bets on ‘Many Indias’ strategy amid inflation, shifting consumer demand

Mumbai: Britannia is reorganising itself into a cluster of "Many Indias" with startup-style teams and local decision-making powers, managing director Rakshit Hargave said, as the biscuit maker battles inflation, supply-chain disruptions and shifting consumer demand.

The maker of Good Day and Marie Gold biscuits said it is restructuring sales, marketing and innovation teams around regional markets to move faster on product launches and customisation. It is also stepping up investments in premium products, quick commerce and new food categories.

"We are realigning the way we work in creating a team for many Indias," Hargave said during an earnings call Friday. "The agility of the teams, the startup culture, their ability to take quicker calls, customisation for regional Indias is a very big project which has been kicked on. And you will see the output of that coming in the next few quarters."


The move mimics Hindustan Unilever's 'Winning in Many Indias' (WiMI) strategy implemented a decade ago where the maker of Rin and Dove divided operations into more than a dozen consumer clusters instead of four, to understand local consumers better and tailor products, pricing, distribution and marketing.

Like most consumer goods companies, Britannia too is facing a challenging operating environment marked by high fuel and packaging costs, disruption from the West Asia conflict and pricing turbulence in India's mass-market biscuit segment after a rejig in goods and services tax.

GST transition is still ongoing, as rural and wholesale channels recover from inventory challenges caused by differently priced packs in the market.

Dual pricing to account for changes in GST rates has caused some challenges in Britannia's rural and wholesale channels, said Hargave. "As a result of that, we have seen a transaction slowdown in those channels. But with the pricing getting normalised, we can see that during this quarter they will get normalised."

The company said it will take calibrated price increases starting this quarter through a mix of grammage cuts and selective hikes on packs priced above ₹10, while continuing aggressive cost-saving programmes across sourcing, logistics and packaging.

While the company has been cushioned partly by lower wheat and cocoa costs and existing contracts on palm oil, Hargave warned that fuel and laminate prices remained sharply inflationary. The company said it has enough wheat and palm oil inventory for roughly five to six months at favourable rates.

The Wadia-owned company has also had to redraw export supply chains after the Strait of Hormuz disruption hurt shipments from Oman and Dubai, key manufacturing hubs for its international business. Britannia shifted production for North America back to its Mundra facility in Gujarat to avoid shipping bottlenecks.

"We are also optimising our sourcing between India and international manufacturing facilities for key geographies to mitigate supply-related challenges," he said. These are expected to become fully operational by mid-May.

After the US last year imposed high tariffs on India, the company had shifted manufacturing for North America to Oman. Over the last few months, however, it moved the base back to Mundra. "We will now be able to dispatch towards North America, because if we were manufacturing in Oman, we would not be able to do that. So that agility has helped us," he said.

The company on Thursday reported a consolidated profit of ₹680 crore for the quarter ended March 31, 2026, up 21% from a year earlier. Revenue grew 7% to ₹4,686 crore. For fiscal 2026, the company's revenue grew 7.5% to ₹18,858 crore, while profit rose 16.5% to ₹2,537 crore.