Tata Consumer Products Limited (TATACONSUM) Earnings Call Transcript
January 27, 2026
Earnings Call Speaker Segments
Ladies and gentlemen, good day, and welcome to Tata Consumer Products Q3 FY '26 Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] Please note that this conference is being recorded. I now hand the conference over to Ms. Nidhi Verma, Head, Investor Relations and Corporate Communications. Thank you, and over to you.
Thank you so much, and welcome, everyone, to the Q3 FY '26 results for Tata Consumer. As we usually do, we will first walk through the key highlights of the quarter for the first 10 to 15 minutes, and then we'll open the floor for Q&A. Today, I'm joined in the room by Mr. Sunil D'Souza, Managing Director and CEO; Mr. Ashish Goenka, Group CFO; Mr. Ajit Krishna Kumar, Executive Director and COO. I'll just draw your attention to the disclaimer statement, which is on your screen. With that, I'll hand it over to Sunil.
Yes. Thanks, Nidhi. So if I have to summarize, we've had a decent quarter where we had a 15% revenue growth. India branded business posted underlying volume growth of 15%. India tea up 3%, as basically as the tea prices have come down, we have started passing on pricing back to consumers. Overall, YTD, we are growing at 9%. Just to put it in perspective, we've always guided for a mid- to high single-digit growth for the tea business. Salt had a, I would say, strong quarter, 14% revenue and 15% volume as we did targeted actions on consumer price and trade promotions coupled with A&P in specific geographies. Yes, so we saw strong results there. Growth businesses, which we've always guided for being 30% of our business, growing at 30%, we were quite in the ballpark, growing 29%, and contributing 30% to our revenue, surpassing INR 1,000 crores in quarterly revenue. Tata Sampann had a strong quarter, 45% growth, all volume-driven. RTD delivered strong performance, 26%, again, all volume driven. Capital Foods and Organic India together grew 15%. Organic India was in the 30s, and Capital Foods India grew sequentially month-on-month. We were impacted a bit by the U.S. tariffs because 20% of Capital Foods is international. International business maintained a strong trajectory, 11% constant currency revenue growth, primarily led by coffee, U.S. coffee, which had strong volume growth as well. Non-branded business, up 20% with profitability remaining healthy, but margins coming back to normative levels as coffee prices have stabilized, albeit at a higher level. Consolidated EBITDA, up 26%. So EBITDA has grown roughly 2x of revenue. Margins expanded 60 bps quarter-on-quarter, 120 bps year-on-year to 14.2%. Our innovation pipeline remains strong with 15 new product launches through the year. Innovation to sales is roughly 4.8%, almost close to our target of 5%. Yes. So INR 1,600 crores of India Beverages with a growth of 7% Foods, similar number at growing at 19%, international INR 1,300 crores growing at 18% and non-branded growing 23% total INR 5,000 crores. This was a landmark quarter for us, having crossed the INR 5,000 crore in a quarter number. Year-to-date, close to INR 15,000 crores, growing at 14% with all businesses delivering double-digit revenue growth. Yes, INR 5,112 crores top line growing 15%, INR 728 crores of EBITDA, 14.2 percentage points, PBT up by 11% to INR 563 crores. Before exceptionals, net profit of INR 399 crores, which is up by 130 bps versus last year, and we're now sitting with INR 1,272 crores of cash. 9 months, almost INR 15,000 crores, growing at 14%. Group net profit before exceptionals growing at 17% to INR 1,137 crores and yes, INR 1,272 crores of cash. Yes. So starting with the India business, we maintained our A&P close to the 7%, 6.8% to be precise. Salt market share, we had volume growth. On top of that, we had market share growth as well of 40 bps. Market share of tea, as I've mentioned, this only tracks about 57% to 60% of our business, down 70 bps. Next slide. I had talked about last quarter about our pilots on go-to-market. Just to repeat, a lot of the salt strong geographies were also the geographies where our new growth businesses were supposed to be strong. And therefore, to provide the requisite focus, we have 3 types of pilots. We had 3 types of pilots running, a separate salt distributor in salt geographies where salt contribution was very high and a non-salt distributor in geographies where salt plus tea was very high, salt alone was not. Salt plus tea was very high. We separated it into core and growth. And there are points -- cities where smaller outlets, we've now got a common salesman going in, whereas for larger outlets, we've got separate split routes selling by category going in. All the 3 pilots more or less were bang on, on the KPIs that we had budgeted for. And therefore, now we are rolling it out nationally. We are about 82% done on the national rollout. By first week of February, we'll be 100% done. 270-odd distributors have been transitioned to the new go-to-market model, and we've added 160 more distributors. We've used AI to align routes and servicing norms. Also, dispatch plans, auto replenishment systems have been aligned and the sales hierarchy has also been realigned as needed. For example, if it's a salt plus all non-salt, so the territory executives and area managers will handle only salt and we consolidate at the region level. So to give dedicated focus both from a supervisory level as well as from an execution level on the ground. This, I already talked about, 29% contribution growing at -- sorry, 29% growth and growth businesses now account for 30% of our India business. New launches across health and wellness, convenience and premiumization. We have launched matcha. We've launched RTD Green Tea and Fruit Tea, Green Tea, which includes L-Carnitine as well. Tata Copper now in glass. We've launched various formats of coffee and jelly and flavors in coffee. Soulfull, we've launched slim care. In convenience, we've got ready-mixes for paneer, chili, Schezwan and manchurian. We always had ginger garlic paste, but there is an opportunity for a separate ginger and garlic. And we've launched the high-end chili soy, light soy, which is primarily used in Southeast Asian/Japanese restaurants. And rock salt, we've taken it to the next level by launching a Himalayan version. Our ratings underscore our commitment to responsible business. We've upped the game on MSCI ratings, upped our score on S&P Global and done decently on all the other ratings. In macro terms, tea prices are coming down broadly to the 2024 levels, albeit in the last -- in the end of Q3, we did see a little bit of an uptick on tea prices, keeping a close watch on that. Coffee has started to come down, except after the Venezuela action, there was a bit of uptick on coffee. The forecast is that from the current about 370 to 390, it should start coming down. But your guess is as good as mine on coffee pricing. We remain agile and ready to take pricing as and when needed. In Packaged Beverages, 3% volume translated to 3% net revenue for tea, marginal movement in market share, albeit gross margins expanded handsomely out here as tea prices came back to normal. India Foods, 19% net revenue growth, 16% volume. Salt up by 14% on revenue; Sampann, 45%. Salt market share up by 40 bps. Ready To Drink, close to a INR 200 crores net revenue. Remember, Q3 is probably one of our lower quarters. And therefore, we are well poised to recover strongly in the coming season. Revenue up 26%, primarily driven by volume up at 27%. And we've expanded the ready-to-drink tea and coffee aggressively in the meantime. Capital Foods, Organic India, Capital Foods, close to INR 240 crores revenue; Organic India, INR 120 crores, combined gross margins of close to 50%. Unbranded business, revenue up 20%; solubles revenue up is 34%. Tata Starbucks, second successive quarter of same-store sales growth of 3%. Our average daily traffic, which was the issue is now more or less stabilized. It is -- and ticket is holding. We opened 12 new stores during the quarter. We are now at 504. We opened our second reserve store in Gurugram, and now we are present in 81 cities with Jabalpur being the latest city to be opened. U.K., flat on revenue, market share on black close to 19%, and we continue to maintain 10% value market share, but very strong delivery on profitability in the U.K. The U.S. business, very strong revenue growth, driven both by volume and by pricing at 31%. Market share slowly inching up both for K-Cups as well as coffee bags. In the U.S., coffee bags are growing roughly 4x the growth rate of K-Cups. And given our strong share in bags, we remain quite confident to continue this growth at least in the near term. Canada, as we took some aggressive pricing on tea revenue has been sluggish. Growth in specialty has been heartening at 2%. And overall, more or less maintained our market share at a 25%. Ashish, over to you for financials.
Thank you, Sunil. I think most of you would have seen the numbers. I'll keep it very brief. Our consolidated revenue crossed the milestone of INR 5,000 crores this quarter, growing at 15%. Growth was fairly broad-based with all 3 vectors of the business delivering double-digit growth, which is India, international and non-branded. In terms of margin, we expanded our EBITDA margins by 120 basis points sequentially by 60 basis points. EBIT margins expanded by 150 basis points this quarter. This was largely driven by the recovery in India margins and led by the moderation in tea prices and therefore, recovery in the tea margins. International margins continue to remain impacted by the U.S. coffee, albeit some of the pricing interventions that we have taken in the last quarter has improved the margin profile, but the gap remains. On non-branded, there was again a contraction in the margin, largely on account of the fact that on the -- in the base, we had some inventory grains and fair valuation gains, which, of course, are not repeating, but margins have come to more normative levels right now. On a 9-month basis, very quickly, top line on a consolidated basis growing at 14% underlying 13%. And of course, at a YTD level, our EBITDA margins have contracted by 80 basis points because of the impact that we had both on tea and coffee in the first half. Overall financials, as Sunil said, top line growing at 15%, EBITDA growing at 26% and PAT growing at 34%. In terms of exceptional items, we had 3 this quarter. We had a onetime gain on a sale of property, which was offset by a onetime charge that we took on some of the impairment of assets because of the transformation that is happening in our coffee factory in the U.S. We also did a onetime catch-up as a consequence to the labor courts, which were announced recently. The gratuity catch-up and the leave encashment catch-up was about INR 23 crores, which is what you see in the exceptional line. And with that, the PAT growth was about 34%. I think I'll not spend time on the stand-alone and the segment performance. Maybe we can jump to the Q&A straight away. Happy to take questions.
[Operator Instructions] We'll take our first question from the line of Abneesh Roy from Nuvama.
Congrats on strong performance. My first question is on Tata Soulfull and Tata Sampann. So Tata Soulfull, I wanted to understand how is the market share in the past 2 years. And this is a great, exciting market on paper, but reasonably challenging because there is one strong multinational company. And then there is a long tail of a lot of new companies, some of the existing companies have also entered. So what is the right to win here? How are you able to differentiate? So if you could discuss Tata Soulfull. On Tata Sampann, very strong numbers, 45% growth, largely essentially volume-led. So if you could tell us here, how has the legacy business done? And how have the new businesses like the cashew nuts, et cetera, those have done. So we can get a sense of where is the growth coming from? Any one-off there given 45% growth?
So Abneesh, let me take your second question first. The Sampann growth is broad-based. So the base businesses of poha, pulses, makhana, all of them are firing off on great cylinders, percentage growth-wise. So let me say it has come from the new businesses as well as from the legacy businesses, right? The best part is my dry fruits business is now close to a INR 250 crores, INR 300 crores annual run rate. Cold pressed oils is again in the similar ballpark. All of these have been launched in the last 18 to 24 months, right? So differentiated product, very specifically entering trust deficit categories. Very, very clear winners. In fact, the good part is this is just the base foundation because the ultimate idea in dry fruits is we will play the whole spectrum. Now that we know the sourcing, we know the time of the year when to source, which channels, what are the packs which work, what are the dry fruits which work. Now when we entered the flavored, roasted, salted, that is where we will move up the value ladder. So that's a good part. Similarly, in cold pressed oils, I think we're off to a great start because normally, we would list on e-commerce, then go to, I would say, MTs, then GT and then modern trade. This time, we've had pull from modern trade pulling us into the outlet even before we went to GT or MT. So that's how powerful the proposition say. So we remain bullish on Soulfull -- Sampann. But again, I'll go back to our guidance is for roughly a 30% growth, and we will remain guided by that. That's number one. On Soulfull, we are close to a double-digit market share in most categories which we operate. We don't track for all the categories in which we operate, but mostly close to a double-digit number. The big numbers for us are in the choco fills as well as the muesli segment, which is growing very fast. But here's the thing. In Soulfull, it is not one particular category that we are playing at. If you look at it, we have expanded to different categories and therefore, expanded TAM. And therefore, we are not playing in the small pond given the fact that we are playing in rusks, we're playing in choco sticks, we are playing in muesli, we are playing in breakfast cereals as well. So it's a wide-ranging thing. Broadly, we are -- let me say, we are decently satisfied, but we do think we can take Soulfull to the next level. And I wouldn't worry about one incumbent versus all start-ups, et cetera. Everyone can carve out their own space. I think with the plans that we have, we remain quite confident.
Two follow-ups to my first question. So one is, you said 30% is a more normal number to look at from a growth perspective for Sampann, but growth was 45%. So there's no one-off, you could clarify on that. Second is on the margins for dry fruits and, say, for Soulfull. Any color you can give from an outlook perspective, when do you see that normalizing versus the overall noncore portfolio ex of the salt and say, your tea business, when do the margins for these 2 subsegments normalize versus the noncore? What is the...
So let me put it this way. There is no one-off in Sampann this quarter. I'm just trying to temper expectations on the number that we might not always hit a 6%, sometimes it will also be a 4%, right? So from that perspective, I think 30% is a realistic number for us to keep targeting. While we know we can drive 45%, and we'll continue to drive for that. On the margin perspective, I always said in Sampann, we were close to double-digit margins. The good news is we have hit double digit. We remain confident of edging up the total business to close to a 15% sort of number in the medium term, near to medium term. And that's what -- so while we are growing top line, the good news is we are constantly improving the margin profile as well. Going forward, the margin profile will only get better. As -- like I said, in dry fruits, the money is -- the margins are in the roasted, salted flavored ones. But for you to get there, you need to know how to play the base game because then you add the value additions on top of that.
Last question, salt, which is generally very highly penetrated. Last 2 quarters have seen super volume growth. I do understand that you did mention on the grammage addition, the trade incentive and promotions. But on a full year basis, does it normalize? Because initially, customer will buy more, but he will not consume more salt anyway given it has a health kind of a question mark. So would you say that next 2 quarters, this could start normalizing to a much more modest number or you see that market share gains will continue?
So Abneesh, we've always guided for salt being again in the mid- to high single-digit growth on revenue, volume being about 4% to 5% and rest being value price mix movements. Just to give you a perspective, I think the top 6 brands are probably 56%, 57% market share in this category. And the balance 44% is a long tail of what I call no name brands. So the scope for growth is enormous. It is not necessarily driven by per capita consumption. It is driven more by market share and improved penetration of Tata Salt, not necessarily salt, right? We're replacing other brands in the household. So -- I mean the market size could be 2x of what it is, if you just extrapolate from that perspective. But mid- to longer term, we have maintained that it will be mid- to high single digits.
[Operator Instructions] We'll take our next question from the line of Tejash Shah from Avendus Spark.
Congrats on good set of numbers. Sir, first question is the strong momentum that we are witnessing. Is it a broader consumption recovery or largely led by our own execution or mix of execution and base effect? And how do you see this sustaining over coming quarters?
So let me say, we have always said we will drive double-digit top line and bottom line ahead of the top line. And I think we've roughly delivered that. I wouldn't comment about the broader consumption and recoveries, et cetera. I do think the teams have executed our plans quite well. And the plans have changed through the year. For example, we didn't have the salt targeted actions baked in into the numbers or the expansion of certain brands like Sampann baked into the numbers. But let me say, Tata Consumer, I would say, is an entrepreneurial company. As we see opportunities, we jump in. It's not that it's not in our budget, so we'll execute next year. That doesn't happen here, yes. So if we see opportunity, we will drive it. We have seen opportunity this quarter. And across the board, I think the teams have driven the numbers quite well.
Very clear. Sir, second, the growth portfolio has done phenomenally well, and we have reached your target of 30% of the India business way ahead of -- or at least a quarter ahead of your time line. So how should we think about this number now moving? Would you say that this can be 40%, 50% of portfolio by FY let's say, '28, '29 or you are keeping it open as of now?
So let me say growth businesses have to contribute to a higher percentage of the India business fundamentally because they defined as growth businesses, they will grow faster than the core. So the mix will change, and that's a conscious strategy as we seek to diversify away from being a salt and tea company into a multi-category food and beverage company, this will happen. We are in the middle of putting numbers together for the next year and beyond. And -- as and when we have clarity, we will definitely give guidance. But as of now, I would say 30% is a good number to put a peg on. As and when we look at a different number, we will revert on that.
We'll take our next question from the line of Mihir Shah from Nomura.
Congrats on a great set of numbers. Firstly, on tea pricing, have all the price cuts in tea captured in the quarter? If not, what percentage is reflected in 3Q? And secondly, on tea, now with tea prices going up again, fair to say that given that you have bought most of the tea prices in 2Q, you will have a lower cost advantage? And can that have a tailwind to margins? So that's on the first.
So Mihir, let me say, broadly on commodities, we have given up on forecasting with accuracy, right? Given climate change, et cetera, et cetera, you don't know how things pan out, number one. So we remain flexible, agile, able to move in either direction. And that's what I maintained even in coffee. That's number one. Number two, there was a small uptick on tea prices at end of the quarter. But remember, January to about mid-March, early April is a very lean season in the north. Now how the north crop comes out mid to -- mid-March to early April will determine the opening prices then. Therefore, I would not make a statement as to whether we'll be better off or what's off, right? We've done a calculation. We've got inventory for a decent part of Q1, but we will be flexible on moving up or down depending on how the commodity fares when the season opens. And to the other point, we have already passed on most of the increases in this quarter, and that's why you saw volume equal to value growth for the quarter. And as of now, if nothing changes, broadly, we'll go back to the mid-single-digit volume, that's a couple of basis points of price mix.
Understood. Understood. Secondly, can you talk a little bit more about the GTM changes that you highlighted? 80%, you've already said that you -- that pilot is already in place. Now that is only for those number of states, 8 states or so or it is for pan India, some clarity on that? And what is the impact on the growth there? The 30% growth that you had called out for the growth businesses captures these GTM changes or one can expect an elevated growth because of this?
So number one, the primary reason we have done the GTM changes is to continue to drive growth. Now as the percentage of growth businesses grows and the absolute grows, I think even maintaining the 30% is a decent enough target to have. So in the short to medium term, we are not changing the 30%. The GTM changes fundamentally are supposed to be making sure that they drive growth. A, they are pan-India. They are not restricted to specific states. We had shown the maps on certain -- the things on the strong points where Capital Foods was strong, where salt is strong and where Organic India was strong to -- I mean if that is the deduction for the 8 states, that's not a right number. We have done a pan-India more than 5 lakh plus -- more than 10 lakh plus cities. Any city, which is either overwhelming share of salt, then it is a salt plus non-salt, where salt plus tea is overwhelming. For example, Kolkata was a 91% salt plus tea and only 9% contribution from growth. So there, we have [ gone ] plus core plus growth. And then across every other city where we have common distributors, and we had split routes earlier, we've gone back and we've -- because the retailers told us that for small drop, small this thing, they don't want multiple salesmen coming in. And therefore, the smaller outlets, if I remember right, it's more than INR 3,000 drop per month in urban and -- in metros and INR 2,000 in -- lower than metros. We have common salesman. Beyond that, we have multi-category salesmen going in split routes. So the idea is the salesman has dedicated focus. About the salesman, the TSE and the ASM is also structured by category. So for salt, it is -- the guys only handle salt. And for -- if it is core and growth, there is a team which is only handling core, there is a team which only handling growth. So that gives dedicated focus behind execution. So not only supervisory level, execution level, everything is segmented to drive growth.
Got it. And last question on the margins. I know you highlighted double-digit revenue growth, higher than revenue growth will be the profit growth. Can you just highlight what will be the tailwinds for margins? Happy to know that your dry fruits portfolio will contribute to Sampann, et cetera. But again, it will be -- in the overall scheme of things will be relatively smaller. But what are the other drivers that can lead to better margin growth and drive higher than revenue growth on the profitability front?
So I think the single biggest lever will be scale, simply, right? Growing 14%, 15% in that ballpark, we get huge leverage of scale, number one. Number two is the mix of the portfolio. We've got to balance between the higher-margin acquisitions, tea, salt to be growing enough to offset the lower margin growth of Sampann, for example, and we managed that so far. Overall, like I said, when we exit Q4, we should be in the ballpark of a 14.5% to 15% EBITDA margin. 15% is a normative number, which we need to get to. Longer term, as we continue to drive premiumization in our portfolio and drive premium categories in the portfolio and improve margins for the base categories. For example, pulses, it was a negative 5% when we started 5 years back. Today, it's close to a double digit, right? So as we improve that as well, we would expect to continue to improve the gross margin profile. Longer term, I've always maintained a good foods business in India should be a 17% plus. We are targeted towards that in the longer term.
We'll take our next question from the line of Nihal Mahesh Jham from HSBC.
Congratulations on the strong performance. The first question was on Capital Foods. If you could just give a sense of what the domestic growth was, leaving apart the international impact that you mentioned because of tariffs. And ideally, I think as you were highlighting, you were expecting the changes the changes there to sort of reflect in better growth. So what is still missing for that part of the business to see a pickup?
So overall, Capital Foods has improved month-on-month for us. And like I said, we expect the go-to-market changes that we are doing to provide impetus to that. Overall, the softness in Capital Foods was, like I said, month-on-month. So the early part of the quarter was a bit soft. And more importantly, 20% of the business is exports largely the U.S. And while tea and coffee, base tea coffee and base spices margin, the tariffs have gone to 0. Rest of the portfolio still remains at 50%. So as you've taken up prices aggressively, that has had quite a bit of an impact.
Just possible to call out, what was the growth in the export part of Capital Foods?
Exports was roughly flat for the whole quarter.
Understood. Sunil, the second question was on acquisitions. Now historically, you've always mentioned that whenever you'll incrementally be evaluating, it has to be aligned to distribution, potentially something that can sort of go in the same track as you've highlighted. If you ever have to consider categories, which are, say, beyond this, then what are going to be the aspects which you look into?
It's the same, nothing changes, right? A, it has to pass strategic filters. We've already defined -- right now, we're in Food and Beverage. In Food and Beverage, we defined specific categories where we play in. More or less, we've ticked all the boxes on the categories that we wanted to play in. And we've got the brands now to play across the Food and Beverage spectrum. A, B, apart from that, it has to make sense from a commercial value creation perspective, right? So unless that happens, I don't think we'll be doing acquisition, but that's not to say that we want. We are keeping our eyes and ears open. Like I said, almost every deal that happens in India does pass through either Tata Sons or Tata Consumer. So we either will do or will not do, depending on the fact that it has to tick off both the strategic and financial filters.
Next question is from the line of Percy Panthaki from IIFL Securities.
Sir, my question is on Sampann. As brand overall, all the categories that Sampann deals in, is the brand breakeven at EBITDA level?
So Percy, we've always maintained, we do not do EBITDA for brands. For every single business, we do something called margin after advertising and promotion expenses because below that, the sales force, the operations are all common costs. I can always do a hypothetical allocation excel sheet, accounting number, but that's not a true way to judge the business. The Map for Sampann is positive, and it is improving quarter-on-quarter, and in line with our expectations.
Understood, sir. And given that this business is a lower margin and it would be growing at a very high pace, do you think that it will sort of put a drag on the overall consolidated margin?
So Percy, for the last 5 years, we've been growing Sampann at 30%, and we maintained the gross margin. The whole trick is to make sure that your portfolio works to your advantage. As I said, we've created our portfolio or crafted our portfolio in a manner where, A, we've got a set of businesses which are paying the bills and with a steady state gross margin bar up and down of a U.S. coffee or a tea happening from time to time. But broadly, longer term, tea, salt, international, very steady businesses, mid- to high single digits and certain gross margin. There are high top line businesses of RTD and Sampann where the margin is lower but improving consistently. And then there are the growth businesses growing aggressively, smaller businesses, but higher -- significantly higher margin profiles of Capital Food, Soulfull, Organic India, those. So it is all to make sure that you're balancing top line and bottom line at the same time. So it's a delicate balance to place. If none of my other businesses were growing, it was only Sampann, it will be dilutive. But I think over the last 5 years, we have proved that we have the ability to juggle multiple balls at the same time.
Understood, sir. And earlier when you said a foods business in the longer run should be 17%, is that at an EBITDA level or is that at the other calculation that is variable costs and advertising, but not accounting for fixed costs?
No, no. So I wish I was allowed to deliver businesses of Map of only 17% because below that, there is at least 12% to 13% of cost coming in, right? So I can no way deliver EBITDA as required. This is EBITDA percentage of 17%. 17% plus is the number.
Got it. Got it, sir. Secondly, on tea, just wanted to understand the volume growth of 3% is a little lower than sort of our targets. So what is playing here? Is it sort of competition? Or is it -- I mean, just a one-off quarter? Or what should we read into this?
So Percy, I wouldn't measure too much into the quarter-on-quarter for every single category. Overall, year-to-date, we have delivered a 9% top line for tea. Also remember, last year, same quarter, we had delivered a 7% volume growth. So we're cycling that. So if you do 7% and 3%, we are back to the 5% -- 4% to 5% volume growth, which we have been guiding for. So A, it's the best quarter. Second, I would urge not to look at quarter-to-quarter, there will be ups and downs because at times, you'll have volume upside, price downsides and vice versa. Sometimes, a few quarters, it does take to settle. But overall, India tea about 4% to 5% volume and a couple of basis points of price mix. That's what we guide for.
Next question is from Sheela Rathi from Morgan Stanley.
Two questions from me. The first question was with respect to Capital Foods. Sunil, just want to hear from you that in 2026, do we have any future plans with respect to scaling that part of our portfolio? And I'll just add the second question also. The second question is, overall, on the distribution side for the next 2 years, what is the kind of road map we have with respect to our GTM strategy?
So on the GTM strategy overall, we have -- we covered about 1.7 million, 1.8 million outlets directly, and numeric reach is about 4.5 million. In the medium term, our target is to get to about a 5 million numeric reach. And the reason I'm emphasizing this because direct reach will probably, I would say, an aspirational number is about 1.9 million to 2 million. I wouldn't drive beyond that because now, we have to get the wholesale multiplier and get into the semi urban, rural territories, which are our lower share territory. So that's number one. On Capital Foods, our ambition remains 25% to 30%. I do think we've started to expand the portfolio through innovation, number one. And number two, the new segmented go-to-market and supervisory system should drive us there. Apart from that, you would have seen our new ads that we've created. This is in the mode of how Capital Foods was built, making blockbuster ads memorable, which lasts for a long time. So that is the third pillar.
Just one follow-up, Sunil. Is this something which we feel is that is [indiscernible] as of now?
Sorry, we missed you in the middle.
Yes. Is there something which is missing for us to kind of accelerate the growth part for Capital Foods? Is there some missing link here which we need to work on right now?
I wouldn't say there is a missing link. There is -- basically, there are 2 jobs in Capital Foods. There is market share growth in existing categories and there is category creation for us. The south and east of the countries, Capital Food is a slightly alien thing, right? I mean, they have not seen Schezwan Chutney, et cetera. So both advertising and sampling at scale are the critical pieces and we have started accelerating that. We've upped our what we call taste ambassadors by roughly 50% over the last, I would say, 6 months or so. And like you've seen, pumped up our A&P, including bringing in known faces from the South into the ads so as to relate better to the consumers. And lastly, like I mentioned, like I'll give you the example of Calcutta, where 91% of the business is tea and salt, 9% is total growth categories. You can imagine how much focus it gets. And therefore, the segmented go-to-market will be a huge unlock because now there is dedicated focus on these categories.
Sorry, 90%, if you could just repeat Sunil?
In Calcutta, 91% of the business came from tea and salt, and 9% from all the growth categories, including Organic India, Capital Foods, Soulfull and Sampann. So I mean, whether it's the distributor, whether it is a salesman, whether it is the supervisor. Ultimately, bread and butter is paid for by tea and salt. And therefore, the focus is always tea and salt. Now that we've separated it out, there is dedicated focus on these growth categories, and that's where we expect the unlocks.
Sir, if I may ask, what is the reverse of that 91%, 9%? I mean which are the markets where we are seeing the fastest growth for our growth categories?
So fastest growth for categories -- growth categories are across the place. I just gave you an example of Calcutta because that's stuck in my mind about what should be done in large metro markets to unlock.
We'll take our next question from the line of Anurag Dayal from PhillipCapital.
So my question is related to RTD portfolio. Two parts of the question. One is that we launched the Zip Zap energy drink I think previous quarter. How has been the initial reception to it? And secondly, there is expectation that summer will be good this year, and a lot of beverage companies have already started to build their channel, increasing visi cooler and all. So where we are in the distribution and what -- how we are planning to increase our distribution and reach before the summer?
So let me use a Hindi term, [Foreign Language] because I have stopped trying to forecast the weather, right? When there are rains in Bombay in November and December, and it starts -- doesn't rain until around June, July, it's a very difficult forecast, right? But that said, you're absolutely right. Seasonality does pick up. I would say probably February onwards is when you would start seeing the uptick. So right now, we are -- let me say, over the last 2 years, we have started to be ahead of the curve. We have ramped up our distribution, and we should be in a good position by around end January, early February, whether it is salesforce, whether it is distributors, whether it is salesmen because after that, the entire focus is on execution. So if it is a good summer, we will write it out. Like you've seen, it's not a pricing-driven growth. It's a volume-driven growth, which I feel good about. And we are very, very clearly started to build out the 3 pillars, the entire water stack right from the INR 10 bottle of Copper Water up to the INR 90, INR 100 bottle of Himalayan and the entire range in between. And you will see some more aggressive launches in this space coming in the next 60 days or so. We've started to build the whole stack of ready-to-drink tea and coffee, whether it is green tea, fruit tea, kombucha, ready-to-drink coffee in a can at INR 70. We've now a PET at INR 50, and the high end as well. And then, of course, we've got the entire cups portfolio. Zip Zap was launched middle of last quarter. Fingers crossed. We're still in a few markets. We want to test it out before we go broad-based. But right now, more or less to expectations.
So just a follow-up on RTD. What is the current reach, if you can [indiscernible] how many outlets reach for RTD?
I'll have to get back to you on the exact number of outlets, but it's broadly in the 1 million outlet ballpark. Right now, we will focus on growing our share in this territory before widening the footprint.
Next question is from the line of Sidharth Negandhi from Chanakya Wealth Creation.
My first question...
I'm sorry can you use your handset mode, please? Your audio is not very clear.
Is this clear? Hello?
Yes, we can hear you. Please go ahead.
So moderator, perhaps [indiscernible].
Yes, please go ahead.
So Sunil, I think there are some questions on the webcast link. I think some of those have been answered, of which we're touching upon the go-to-market changes, which you've already explained. There is one more question on the India beverage market share in tea has seen some softness despite revenue growth. To what extent is this a conscious value over share trade-off? And how do you internally track success in such situations?
I think I have publicly maintained and the good news is now multiple people are saying the same thing. If you read the Economic Times, I think, yesterday or day before, just to give you a perspective, last quarter, I think about 18.5% of my business came from e-commerce, quick commerce. The last quarter -- previous quarter was 21%. This quarter, it was 18.5%. Modern trade roughly is in the 14%, 15% ballpark. So that's 33%. About 5% comes from institutions, which is 38%. Therefore, all of GT is only 62% of the business. And in modern trade, remember, which Nielsen reports, one significant player doesn't share data. So at best, they are reporting about 2/3 of the market in a sampling format. And if you observe market shares ups and downs, I would urge you to listen to commentary from multiple players and then make up your mind about who's gained share, who's lost share. We look at -- because there is no other database available, we report -- continue to report Nielsen because otherwise, if I don't report, I'll be accused of trying to hide numbers. So we do report it for what it is worth. And yes, when my volume growth is still a strong number compared to industry, when total value growth is close to double digits, we feel in a good place. I don't think we're losing market share. It might move marginally up and down. Just to give you a perspective on Nielsen does measure e-commerce. They don't report it and don't total it into this, but we are market leaders on e-commerce. Incidentally, e-commerce, quick commerce, as I mentioned, quick commerce has grown 100%. So we have about -- on e-commerce, we have about 38%, 39% share and we are leaders. If I total all that, it will be a completely different picture. There are channel shifts, which Nielsen doesn't measure. Where it measures, it's by sampling. And like I said, in modern trade doesn't pick up one player. So your guess is as good as mine.
Thank you, Sunil. The next question is on Tata Sampann. The question is that is the growth being primarily driven by distribution expansion or are we beginning to see repeat consumption and brand-led pull, especially in staples like pulses and spices?
So let me say my strongest channel for Sampann is e-commerce simply because most of the categories that we play in, with all due respect, we are also competing with the retailer. Remember, when I'm selling pulses, he is scooping up pulses from a 50-kilo bag, making a 50% margin on that. Whereas in my Sampann ad best, make a 15% odd sort of margin. So therefore, e-commerce, quick commerce is the stronger channel for Sampann. And the fact that we're getting this volume traction and this thing just proves that we've built brand loyalty and pull. Just to put it in perspective, even when I do market visits, et cetera, most of the times, even the GT retailers who are around, they attest to the fact that once the consumer has picked up Sampann, then they hardly go back just because of our stringent adherence to quality norms.
Okay. Thank you, Sunil. There is a question on innovation. It says with innovation remaining strong at 15 launches this quarter, could you share what percentage of revenue now comes from products launched in the last 3 years? And how has this metric evolved?
So we've launched 15 products this quarter, year-to-date is 55. And we've publicly said that we want to be around the 5% plus mark on innovation to sales, defined as revenue from products launched in the last 3 years. We are at 4.8% at end of last quarter, and there's no reason we will not cross 5% this year.
There is one question on how do you see the EU FTA for Tata Consumers in the long term? And any update on Tata Starbucks on further store opening in terms of resizing stores and further investment in that business?
So EU FTA, I will not comment on it because I'm not sure we have all the details on what unfolds, number one. Number two, as we mentioned, our big focus areas in the international markets are U.K., U.S., Canada. EU is there, but it is not a very, very significant piece. So I would wait and watch to see how that pans out. On Tata Starbucks, we remain bullish on the coffee opportunity in India, both in home and out of home. On out of home, it is Tata Starbucks. We opened -- we are now at 504 stores in 81 cities. We are immensely focused on making sure we constantly tweak our business model to make sure it appeals to Indian consumers and continue to drive business. As we said, coming from a significant dip in the entire QSR industry over the last 24 months, last 2 quarters have been encouraging. We are now in positive same-store sales growth. We did temper store openings a bit to ride through the softness and make sure we made the right modifications to enable faster growth going forward. We remain in the middle of that entire exercise. But longer term, we do intend to be among the top, if not the top coffee shop in India.
Thank you, Sunil. There is a question from Rohit from White Oak. He is asking how much is quick commerce within this quick e-commerce savings of 18% to 20%?
So quick commerce is about 15%. The balance, about 4% to 5% would be e-commerce.
I'm just mindful of the time. So maybe I'll just take one last question from the webcast. Can you clarify the outlook for the price mix going forward, given we have given some pricing back to consumers? Should we expect some negative price mix for the next 2 quarters?
Yes, as I said, we've given off most of the pricing during this quarter, but I don't think the entire picture on the pricing has flown through. There would be a little bit of impact of price mix, but I wouldn't say it will be significant enough, but it will be sort of flattish to slightly lower going forward. But as I said, as we've given our price, we expect volume to pick up. And as I said, we've said mid- to high single-digit revenue growth. At points in time, volume will be over powering versus price growth and vice versa. Going forward, at least for the short term, we expect volume to come back stronger and therefore us continuing to deliver the mid- to high single-digit revenue top line.
And perhaps one last question before we wrap up. There is a question on international margins, whether they are largely back at normative level? Or are we likely to get expansion in the fourth quarter?
No. International margins are not at the normative level, simply because the entire impact of the coffee cost increases have not passed through. We've had one more round of price increase in the U.S. in the month of January. Post which, we would have broadly passed on the current cost increases. But that takes some time to translate into the P&L. So I would say, we're about a quarter away from seeing normalized pricing for international. Yes, so we are at least a quarter off.
Thank you. Thank you so much, Sunil. And just being mindful of the time, I know there are still some pending questions, but perhaps you can reach out to us for that. On behalf of the management of Tata Consumer, I would like to thank you for joining us today. Thank you.
On behalf of Tata Consumer Products Limited, that concludes this conference. Thank you for joining us, and you may now disconnect your lines.
Read the full transcript via the API
You're viewing the first half of this call. Get the complete Tata Consumer Products Limited transcript - plus 252,000+ transcripts from 12,000+ companies, speaker segments and full-text search - through the EarningsAPI REST API or hosted MCP server.
Get an API key View API docs →For developers and AI pipelines
Programmatic access to Tata Consumer Products Limited earnings transcripts and 252,000+ others is available through the
EarningsAPI REST API and the hosted MCP server.
Quarterly plans from $105 - full transcripts, speaker segments, full-text search,
and the /api/v1/transcripts/recent polling endpoint for ETL pipelines.