Rajani Sarawagi

Case: Growth Strategies of Britannia (India’s Emerging Food Conglomerate)

Britannia has emerged as one of the largest Food conglomerate in India which was started as a
biscuit company in Calcutta with an initial investment of INR 295. With the continuous focus on
quality and value by the introduction of several new and innovated offerings such as Tiger, Good
Day, Fifty- Fifty, Treat, Pure Magic, Marie gold, Little Hearts, Nutrichoice, etc, Britannia was
ranked second among FMCG companies in India. Today Britannia’s biscuit earns 90% of the
total revenue from the Indian biscuit market producing varieties of biscuits for every group of
consumers, making every person a true Britannian. It has not only limited its product within the
national boundary but has extended itself to Middle East and Sri Lanka.

It is the most admired food brand in India that has been there for over 90 years. Due to the
rapidly growing health and wellness trends among the consumers, Britannia has also came up
with the low calorie, nutritional brands like Tiger Glucose, Tiger Cashew, Thinlite, Cream
Cracker, Nutrichoice Digestive , Nutrichoice sugarout that is all about eating healthy for leading
a better life. Despite the challenges faced by inflation such as rise in the price of raw materials
like wheat, milk, vegetable oil and sugar, it has yet been able to manufacture low priced products
and has experienced significant sales growth. Its unique distribution and branding strategies,
aggressive promotions, convenient packaging, differentiating its products through launching new
varieties has made it able to establish as a market leader with a market share of 39% among the
presence of big players like ITC food and Parle.

Britannia Growth Strategies:

Britannia Industries Limited owned highly successful food brands with the SBU’s in biscuits,
bread, snacks and dairy products. It has its plants located in India’s five major metropolitan cities
such as Kolkata, Chennai, Delhi, Uttaranchal and Mumbai. The company repositioned every
brand in order to differentiate its products. It has used key branding strategies for building and
managing its brands. It has used line extensions by introducing biscuits with different flavors,
packaging and ingredients like good day cashew and butter, good day pista and badam in good
day category, cream cracker, thin arrowroot and digestive in nutrichoice category and tiger
coconut, tiger cream, chota tiger, tiger banana in tiger category of brands. It has also used brand
extensions by using current brand names to different product categories like Britania Fifty- Fifty,
Britania Fruit cake, Britania Little Hearts, etc. The company also came up with the products such
as Chana Choor, Bikaner ka Bhujiya and Rajasthan ka Aloo Bhujiya for the urban segment that
was highly dominated by snacks such as chips and chocolates.

One of the reasons for its success has been its ability to cope up with the changes in consumer
needs that have varied significantly due to the shift in lifestyles and a corresponding awareness
of health. With a tag line of “Eat Healthy, Think better”, it has addressed new trend by
introducing a healthy and nutritious alternative that is tasty and delightful. The introductions of
Britannia Nutrichoice Digestive which contain cereal fibers and Nutrichoice Sugar out range
were first of its kind of biscuits to be launched in India with “No added Sugar”. Britannia
became the first bakery brand in India to remove trans fats from its products and targeted mainly
towards the health conscious customers.

Britannia also addressed the wide range of price points ranging from INR1 for a sachet to INR
12 for a Good day Pista Badam cookies and INR 15 for 100 gm of Cheeselets. It also widens its
dairy business by launching new products like cheese, dairy-whitener, flavored milk and butter.

Promotional Strategies:

Britannia used aggressive promotion strategy by spending INR 100 million to its promotion
campaign. In the year 1999, the campaign of “Britannia khao world cup jao” became a major
success that rose the company profit up by 37%. Again in the year 2001, the other innovative
campaign “Britannia Lagaan Match” became the India’s most successful promotional activity of
the year. In the year 2005, the company launched “Greetings” range of premium assorted gift
packs that contributed to the significant sales and margin growth. Britannia looked down the
measure to cut down the production costs and followed distribution manufacturing strategy. It
produced only 30% of the company products at its own plants and rest 70% were outsourced
from outside companies that produces the products exclusively for Britannia. The company
continuously tested, checked and monitored the product in order to ensure that its product’s
value and quality are well integrated.

The company also invested heavily in R&D segments and came up with new products with the
successful launch of Treat Duet, Britannia 50-50 Maska- Chaska, Marie Gold Doubles, Pepper
Chakkar, cup cakes, chocolate cakes and renovation of Good day variants. In order to reach the
whole market segment, it positioned its products to various group of consumers like Milk Bikis
for mother with little kids, Tiger Banana for kids that helped in their physical growth,
Nutrichoice biscuits to women who suffered from osteoporosis, etc. In order to reach to kids
segment, it also started introducing biscuits in animal shapes and in smiley faces and full of milk
cream that made very popular among children. The idea of milk cream in the Milk Bikis has
promoted drinking milk in the yummy way.

The company is focusing growth through acquisitions. It formed an alliance with ‘CCD Daily
Bread Pvt. Ltd” a Bangalore based Bakery product Company. In 2007, it formed a joint venture
with Khimji Ramdas Group and acquired a beneficial stake in the Dubai-based Strategic Foods
International Co. LLC and also in the Oman-based Al Sallan Food Industries Co. SAOG who
,were the key players in biscuit and cookies segment.

Britannia is considered as a leader in innovation having a corporate identity of “Eat Healthy,

Think better”. It is rated as the India’s No 1 trusting and caring food brand according to
economic times, winner of worldstar award for its unique packaging and has accorded the status
of being a ‘Superbrand’. Having succeeded in gaining a trust of millions of Indian population
and a strong management and leadership, has led Britannia to continue to walk on a path of
innovation and quality.