I’m optimistic that NourishCo will achieve its sales target of Rs 1,000-crore in FY24: Vikram Grover

Rapid decision-making and investment in the right parts of the business have been the key drivers. The single most important contributing factor is that the businesses became simpler because we’ve got only one parent. We’re now a 100 per cent subsidiary of Tata Consumer Products. The company drove distribution with a three-fold increase in the distribution and supply chain network, adding capacity at the same time as local sourcing. We have also broadened our portfolio significantly, which has given us a lot of heft. At the premium end, we created our own Go To Market (GTM) for Himalayan at the height of the coronavirus, which gave us direct access to customers, and I think because of that we were able to find ways to make more money. Generating that pool of profit has helped us invest money in the right areas of the business.

If somebody had asked me, are you sure you will be at Rs 600 crore two years from now, I wouldn’t have been sure. We have been able to deliver what we targeted. We have a restless team and the good thing about the organisation is that we set our ambitions very high that unleashes restlessness, making ordinarily impossible targets possible. In business, there are never guarantees, but I’m very optimistic that we will get there.

The business of cost-cutting works best when people work cross-functionally because there are costs at every part of the value chain. We looked at our costs from one end to another, including procurement to product specification, packaging, material specification, distribution network, and freight costs. We managed to prune costs at each one of these levels, and that’s why we were able to achieve the results. As we are a small organisation, we were able to take decisions quickly and make a lot of changes in terms of the way we do our business.

If one looks at our business, the turnover closely correlates to the expansion of our distribution network. Our goal is to take the business in the vicinity of Rs 1,000 crore this fiscal.

We are present in more than 6,00,000 outlets, and with our goal we would need to be in nearly 10,00,000 outlets. Distribution will be the key driver for the business going forward.

We have also started automating our salesforce in more than 5,00,000 towns. This will be a significant enabler for driving distribution and also range availability. It is not just going to be the number of outlets, but also the number of SKUs that we sell in every outlet.

We are seeing robust growth. Tata Gluco plus Jelly, which was launched a few quarters ago, has been welcomed and we are expanding capacity to keep pace with demand. The product works magic with children who love the taste, while grown-ups are reminded of the jelly they used to consume as kids. We also launched Himalayan honey and preservatives recently, and the range has got a a good response. We have products at various stages of evolution. The way we work is that we launch in smaller geographies, learn and then scale up. We have some learnings and we are reworking based on the learnings, but the intention here is to be agile even about new products. The intention is to try things, some will work and some will not, and wherever things don’t work, we will be agile and rework and get back to consumers.

We are an organisation that likes to keep it very simple. Direct connections with consumers and trade are extremely critical. We insist that brand managers have a certain level of contact with consumers and with the trade, we believe that sort of consumer intimacy is what promotes great insights