Britannia Industries Q1 consolidated net surges by 117.38 pc

Total income for the quarter under review grew by 26.97 pc to Rs 3514.35 crores as compared with total income of Rs 2767.80 crores for the quarter ended June 30, 2019, company said in a filing with BSE.

Commenting on the performance, Mr Varun Berry, Managing Director, said, "The quarter posed an uphill task for the economy in wake of Covid-19 and caused significant disruptions due to lockdowns imposed to curtail its spread. Factories, depots, transport & vendors across the supply chain were impacted. Our top priority was to ensure safety of our employees & the eco-system we work with for which we laid out clear & stringent standard operating procedures and implemented them meticulously. We thank the sincere efforts put in by the employees, business partners, vendors, customers and the healthcare workers to sail through these times.

'The challenging scenario brought the best out of the team and we implemented some innovative ways of working in Sales, Supply chain & other support functions. Our nimble culture helped us quickly adapt to the situation & meet the market demand. As soon as the lockdown was eased, we focussed on getting our distribution back to the pre-Covid levels and increasing our rural & hinterland reach. During this period, we also launched 'Winkin Cow Lassi' & a Rs 5 Layer Cake pack to expand our reach. All the adjacent businesses too delivered a healthy profitable growth.

'On the cost front, we witnessed moderate inflation in the prices of key raw materials and expect the prices to be stable going forward given the positive outlook on monsoon & harvest. Given the dynamic nature of the pandemic & associated uncertainty, we were quick to resort to cost efficiencies through extraction of supply chain efficiencies, reduction in wastages and fixed costs leverage. We also rationalized media spends considering the constraints of inventories due to higher market demand. These measures helped us improve the shape of our business and record a massive 670 bps increase in operating profit during the quarter.

'We are diligently studying the impact of Covid 19 on short-term & long-term changes in consumer preferences, distribution models and are confident of overcoming challenges with agility."