Enlarging The Pie

Varun Berry aims to make Britannia Industries a total foods company in another three years.

- Ajita Shashidhar

If you are under 30 and aspire to make board-level decisions, Britannia Industries may be just the place for you. The ₹10,000 crore biscuit maker has a young management team that takes crucial decisions related to new product launches as well as categories the company should venture into. The team members also travel across the globe to understand trends and get ideas for Britannia's product portfolio.

Earlier this year, the company entered into a joint venture with a Greek company, Chipita SA, to make long shelf-life croissants with chocolate filling. The idea, says Varun Berry, Managing Director, came from this very team of managers. “They told us they are always in a hurry and need a snack which is filling, delightful, an on-the-go kind of an offering. To give it a more Indian context, they said they were looking for a healthier samosa-type option. After listening to them, I looked across the globe for partners who could help us create such a product and finally zeroed in on Chipita.” The croissant facility is coming up near Pune. The product should be on shop shelves towards the end of 2018.

Thanks to initiatives such as these, Britannia Industries, ever since Berry took over in 2013, has been registering an impressive revenue growth of 15 per cent. Profits have grown by close to 40 per cent a year in the last five years. Berry, 56, admits the company’s stellar growth has been instrumental in attracting the young talent he is so proud of. “The biggest win has been the team. It’s young, passionate and open to ideas. I don’t think many companies can do so many things at the same time with such a tight team. That’s my biggest pride.”