Can ITC Foods Replicate Its Aashirvaad Success?

Despite their steady shift towards packaged food and staples, FMCG companies have built few food brands at scale

- Soumya Gupta

In 2003, ITC's then food division chief, Ravi Naware, had set an ambitious revenue target for the company's packaged foods business: ₹500 crore in four years, along with some profit.

ITC has long since blown past that target.

While the company does not break out revenues by food alone, its non-cigarette fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) business did sales of nearly 22,000 crore in FY25; in comparison, it did just over ₹9,000 crore in sales 10 years ago.

In FY15, ITC had three food brands with sales of over 1,000 crore each: atta brand Aashirvaad, biscuits brand Sunfeast and chips brand Bingo. Today, Aashirvaad is worth over 8,000 crore (by consumer spend, which includes total sales and sales channel margins) while Sunfeast has crossed 5,000 crore by consumer spends, according to a company investor presentation.

Yet, even as it scales up its own brands, extending them to new and adjacent categories, ITC has also been acquiring a slew of independent brands, often in categories it already has a presence in.

Much has changed in the business of building food brands since the cigarette maker first decided to sell packaged food.

In an increasingly fragmented and crowded market, can ITC continue to create brands worth 5,000-8,000 crore and beyond? How crucial will it be to acquire the right candidates, instead of building from scratch?

Tough Times

Today, ITC and its packaged food rivals are struggling against lagging consumer demand. This impacted the company's non-cigarette FMCG business in FY25. While sales were up by just under 5% year on year, Ebitda (earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization) fell nearly 7.5% on year. The Ebitda margin narrowed from 11.2% to 9.8%.

Urban demand has begun to slow down, although it remains strong for premium products among rich Indians.