Ladies and gentlemen, good day and welcome to Marico Limited's Q2 FY26 earnings conference call. We have with us the senior management of Marico, represented by Mr. Saugata Gupta, MD and CEO, and Mr. Pawan Agrawal, Group CFO and CEO, International Business. As a reminder, all participant lines will be in the listen-only mode, and there will be an opportunity for you to ask questions after the presentation concludes. Should you need assistance during this conference call, please signal an operator by pressing star and then zero on your touchstone phone. Before we get started, I would like to remind you that the Q&A session is for institutional investors and analysts. Therefore, if there is anybody else who is not an institutional investor or analyst but would like to ask questions, please directly reach out to Marico's investor relations team. I now hand the conference over to Mr. Sauguta Gupta.
Thank you, and over to you, sir.
Yeah, hi, and good evening to all those who have joined the call. I would like to start with a narrative on the operating environment during the quarter gone by, after which I'll touch upon our performance and strategic objectives going forward. We witnessed steady demand trends during the months of July and August before facing transitionary disruption in trade channels due to the implementation of the revised GST rates in the month of September. The recent GST rate rationalization is a positive step towards boosting demand and driving sustainable growth in the branded FMCG sector. About 30% of our India business has benefited from the GST revision, consistent with the government's objective. We have passed on the benefits of the reduced GST rate to the consumers across relevant categories, either through price cuts or grammage increase in price point packs, thereby enhancing product affordability and accessibility.
Further, the ongoing progress of Project Sethu continued to strengthen our distribution fundamentals with execution across markets. Coverage expansion remains on track, underpinned by focused initiatives to deepen presence in upgraded towns and expand outlet reach. Organized trade, especially quick commerce, continued to lead growth for the business. QCOM has nearly doubled on a year-on-year basis. Overall, we are optimistic that easing inflation, supportive policy, transformative GST reforms, along with favorable monsoons and a healthy crop outlook, will boost disposable incomes and aid consumption across urban and rural markets. Moving on to the quarterly performance, we have delivered a 7% volume growth in spite of the disruptions in September.
In India, after absorbing, as I talked about, the transitionary trade disruptions, our franchises continued to witness healthy off-take growth, with more than 95% of the business gaining or sustaining market share and more than 75% of the business gaining or sustaining penetration. Revenue growth in India business hit multi-quarter highs, supplemented by prior pricing actions in core portfolios in response to sharp inflation in key commodities. Revenue growth will remain strong in the second half, even with partial anniversarization of pricing actions in the Parachute and Saffola portfolios. Delving further into the India business, I will now share the performance of our key categories. Parachute was muted in volume terms in the context of unprecedented hyperinflation and copra prices and 60% pricing growth year-on-year basis. I've never heard of any brand, master brand, power brand in the world taking a 60% pricing growth.
I think it's something unheard of in large FMCG economies. Obviously, in small countries with hyperinflation, this is a possibility. The brand was flattish in volume terms after normalizing for MLH changes. In addition, we also rationed supplies to certain institutional customers to safeguard brand profitability. The brand consolidated its market share, therefore continuing to exhibit remarkable pricing elasticity. We expect Parachute to remain steady and revert to growth as pricing and input cost headwinds are receded over the next few quarters. On copra prices, it has come down actually by 15% from the highs seen in July 2025. Current forecasts and our crop estimate outlook suggest that the copra market is likely to settle down over the course of the next few quarters and start coming down March onwards. Saffola oil was flattish in volume terms amidst the prevailing elevated pricing environment.
We anticipate growth will gradually pick up over the course of the next few quarters as pricing volatility has subsided. The recently launched Saffola Cold Press oil range witnessed a positive response on ECOM and QCOM platforms. Value-added hair oils accelerated its growth trajectory. The franchise gained 150 basis points in value market share on a MAC basis. The mid and premium segment of the portfolio continued to record double-digit volume growth in this quarter. As you will recall, we have started investing behind that and growing that part of the portfolio. We are confident of maintaining this double-digit growth momentum in the franchise in the quarter ahead on the back of strategic pivots over the last 9-12 months. The foods portfolio has crossed INR 1,100 crore ARR. Saffola oats continue to gain market share, while the honey and soya chunks continue to scale up well.
The new muesli range is exhibiting green shoots. True Elements and the plant-based nutraceutical portfolio of Plix maintain their strong growth momentum. During the quarter, True Elements expanded its very tweaked portfolio with the prototyping of protein bars and overnight oats. We remain on track to meet our aspirations over the medium term. The immense growth opportunity in foods and the potential to expand TAM is undeniable and will continue to double down on the same. Having said that, I would have seen that we have grown 12% this quarter. Let me address upfront the reason for this. I think it is a combination of three, four reasons, and therefore we expect food to go back into higher growth trajectory by Q4. There were four things. One, as you know now, we are lapping up the last year of earnout of True Elements.
Obviously, once we have integrated, we have adjusted in terms of certain strategy and consolidated the process and focus on profitability instead of just growth. There is some Flipkart adjustment in terms of, especially on flakes, which is Flipkart has adjusted accounting where the net realization has gone down based on the discounting. There is also a base of mayo, peanut butter, and some munchies in the base. Also, for the next two to three quarters, we are now very, very focused on improving flakes profitability and mix. We will do these things over the next two quarters, and we are extremely confident that by quarter four, we will get back into higher growth rate on foods. Premium personal care maintained a strong growth trajectory during the quarter in the serums, male grooming, and skincare portfolio.
We aim to invest in sustainable growth vectors across the course of the coming quarters. The digital-first portfolio exited the quarter with an ARR of over INR 1,000 crore. We are on track to reach 2.5x of FY 2024 ARR in FY 2027, in line with our aspiration. We remain sharply focused on profitability and aspire to achieve double-digit EBITDA margins in this portfolio by FY 2027. Moving on, the international business maintained its robust performance. Bangladesh showcased its foundational strength and delivered ahead of expectations. Vietnam showed signs of recovery backed by targeted initiatives in the quarter and will continue to grow in the coming quarters at a higher rate. MENA remained on an accelerated growth path on the back of strong growth across core and new franchises. While South Africa had a sluggish H1, we are certain of a visible recovery in the second half.
To sum up, we delivered an encouraging performance in the first half, with both the India international business progressing in tandem. We remain focused on executing our strategic priorities for the year and expect to sustain the positive growth momentum across India and overseas business in the quarters ahead. We will aim to improve India volume growth and maintain robust double-digit constant currency momentum in the overseas business in the second half of the year. Supported by pricing growth, we continue to target around 25% consolidated revenue growth this year. Over the last few years, we have delivered reasonable EBITDA growth despite unprecedented input cost inflation and continued A&P investments. As margin pressures ease gradually, we aim to deliver double-digit EBITDA growth in the second half. We remain confident in our trajectory and expect to make meaningful progress towards the ambition of reaching INR 20,000 crore in revenue by 2030.
While headwinds and disruptions in the operating environment are inevitable, we have consistently focused on embedding resilience across our systems, culture, and operating model to deliver consistent and predictable outcomes. Beyond the strong equity of our brands, it is this institutionalized resilience in cost management and backend capabilities that has enabled us to sustain EBITDA growth through very varying input cost cycles without compromising in brand building investments in each and every quarter since the pandemic. This is something perhaps we are one of the very few companies to achieve. We have never given any surprise any quarter on EBITDA growth. Our culture of empowerment encourages teams to experiment, adapt, and innovate, fostering agility and ensuring the continuity of our growth flywheel. This is backed up with a strong next-gen leadership and capability development plan, which has led to a strong, largely internal succession planning pipeline.
I'd also mention that in addition to this resilience and leadership pipeline, our ability to anticipate and call out risks and opportunities in our business ahead of time has ensured consistent top quartile performance in recent times. This is enabled by a leadership mindset, which is self-aware, authentic, which encourages us to embrace reality and focus on internal solutions for issues rather than always externalize a problem. With that, I conclude my remarks. Thank you, and we can now take questions.
Thank you very much. We will now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on the touchstone telephone. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star and two. Participants are requested to please use handsets while asking a question. Ladies and gentlemen, we will now wait for a moment while the question queue assembles. Our first question comes from the line of Avi from Macquarie. Please go ahead.
Yeah, hi, team. I just had one single question. On the GST transition, could you give us a sense on what would be your expectation of the impact and how long do you think it will take for this disruption to reverse?
I think we saw some of this impact flowing into the first half of October, but I think it's now more or less stabilized.
The quantum of the impact, in your opinion, how much could it be on sales or volume, whichever way?
You can take around 2% kind of a thing in quarter two.
See, quarter two there was an impact of about 2%. Now, it was lit by de-stocking, but typically what we have seen is that once the trade de-stocks, it's very difficult to sort of bring it back to the old stock levels. If the question is whether we'll see a positive impact of 1% or 2% in quarter three, the answer is not really. Having said that, we've given guidance on the overall volume trajectory, which we definitely expect that could be slightly better than what we delivered in quarter two.
Got it. Got it. Perfect. That's all from my side. We'll come back in a few. Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Abneesh Roy from Nuvama. Please go ahead.
Thanks. Two questions. First is on the honey and soya chunks, if you could tell us how much is the salience of Kirana in this part of the portfolio. If you could talk about profitability, how is the positioning? Are you more of a price warrior, or now you are charging almost parity to the market leader in these two segments?
We will be a warrior, but not on pricing. I think we are a challenger. If you really look at it, two things we have to do, which is as far as honey is concerned, I think we were over-indexed in organized trade. As far as GT is concerned, our weighted distribution was not that great, but there is a significant portion of honey business on GT. We are beginning our initiatives on that, and we believe that while in OT, it is a lot of pricing game and a lot more clutter. As far as GT is concerned, it is a far more—and it is the same case with muesli also. The number of players in GT are far lower, and usually the leader enjoys a far higher market share. Therefore, the market share pool available for grabbing is far higher.
I think we should have done it a little earlier, but we are now very, very determined to get our act right on GT in foods. Now coming to profitability, profitability of honey is, I think, decent. There is no reason for concern. As I said, that on pricing, we do not operate on price. As far as soya is concerned, soya is primarily a GT initiative, and we are obviously taking steps to ensure the reason we are not growing significantly aggressively in soya is to ensure we grow profitably. As you are aware, in the last two years, we have increased our gross margin in food by 1,000 basis points, and we are determined every year to improve that gross margin.
One follow-up there, Saugata. In terms of soya, why is it primarily GT? Modern trade, e-commerce, quick commerce generally is a much easier low-hanging fruit. I could not understand why more of GT in this?
Soya, actually, the consumer uses basically, especially during the monsoon, it's used when vegetable prices go up. It is used as a protein substitute, and it is for the mass end. Now, we do not participate in the so-called mock meat and frozen, which is growing, but it is not yet that critical mass. Also, if you look at the unit price, it is not very high, this one. Therefore, technically, even if I push OT, it will not be very profitable, this one, to push in OT because the pricing is pretty muted in terms of the unit price of soya.
Understood. Second and last question. Generally, flakes, the growth is quite strong. Now you are also mentioning profitability also comes into the picture. The reason for that, is it just the phase evolution? If you could talk about competition, how is the competition shaping up? I think HOLs, OZeWASP also, in many of the segments, now they also compete. If you could talk about how the competitive intensity is, is that one of the reasons why profitability is coming as a focus area? You spoke on accounting on Flipkart. Normally, this kind of a thing we have not come across other FMCG companies. How does your number change because of the accounting? The logic behind that, if you could explain. Similarly, what is the size of the True Elements, two new products? One is, of course, overnight oats market size.
Is it very nascent? Second, protein bars is very competitive. What will be your positioning here given a lot of D2C companies are also there?
Okay. I think Pawan will address the Flipkart thing, which is specific to only flakes and this one. Only digital brands. It is not this one for other. Anyway, we will explain that. I think as far as flakes is concerned, there are two things. One is nothing to do with we want to significantly improve profitability because it is a critical mass. It continues to grow. The reason is we have, as I talked about, an aspiration of double-digit EBITDA for the entire digital business 2027. What we are doing is the next two quarters, the food part of the flakes, which is while we will continue to aggressively grow the personal care, which is that mix is changing. The food part of the flakes, we are ensuring that we invest in the right channels and the right this one to drive and improve profitability.
It takes only two quarters to handle that. Okay? Now, coming to overnight oats, it's a category we are creating. It's a big category in developed markets like the US because of the virtue of muesli and this one. It is a category we are developing, and True Elements is one of the pioneers, as you know, that the oat historically, Marico has created the category. It was a plain oats category. Masala oats is something which Marico has driven, and we have significant success and experience in category development in the oats category. Okay? Now, coming to protein, I think you have to participate in the category. It's unlike other companies. Protein is the only driver of growth. True Elements has a far more wide spectrum and a broader participation. We believe that True Elements has the right to win and get a share.
It is more of a participation and getting some share of the category because at the end of the day, if you are a pro-health consumer who is using various types of this one, I can easily cross-sell and upsell to that set of consumers. Now, coming to Flipkart, I think just Pawan will take it up.
This is more in the context of the digital-first brands. When Saugata mentioned in the opening commentary, it does not have any material impact on the Marico numbers reported because Plix has a significant chunk of business coming in from foods, and therefore, it is more of an accounting adjustment where a certain part of the expenses is now getting netted out from the revenues. On a like-to-like basis, there is some impact on the reporting of foods, but if I were to just extrapolate this to an overall company level, there is no significant impact.
Would this be impacting other brands on Flipkart also, or is it specific to you?
It is for the brands where it is a B2C arrangement with Flipkart. For us, it is largely on account of flakes. Nothing to do with Marico set of brands and nothing to do with even some of the other digital brands that we have.
Understood. That's all from my side. Thanks a lot.
Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Mihir Shah from Nomura. Please go ahead.
Hi sir. Thank you for taking my question. Looking beyond FY26, and just taking a context and a leap from FY25, despite significant gross margin pressure, you have materially stepped up your ad spends. How should one think about ad spends going forward in FY27? Is there a threshold of margin that you want to work with on the gross and EBITDA level that we should keep in mind?
I think our objective is to maximize growth while—
Hello?
Yeah. There seems to be some—yeah, hello? Can you hear me? Yeah. Okay. If you really look at it, our objective is to ensure that we continue to maximize growth and volume share while operating with a threshold level of margins. What I see in FY2027 is the following: I think there will be, in terms of some of the raw material costs coming down, there will be an opportunity to get back some of the margins. The other issue is that we will continue to invest, and as you know, we started investing in the premium part of Wahoo. We will continue to invest behind the diversification and the premiumization. Therefore, there will be margin improvement. As I said, our main focus is also to ensure superior and top quartile volume growth as we continue to get into FY2027.
We also expect improvement in Parachute volume growth. As you know, some part of the volume dip has also happened because of two things. One, we could not supply to some of the institutional—this one—because of the choice which we took because of the profitability. Number two is the MLH drops. I believe there will be higher volume growth opportunities in Parachute, especially. We will continue to invest. There could be a slight increase in A&P maybe, but I think the more important part of it is that we are extremely confident of the bottom line growth as once the input costs start coming down. We expect the copra, and as I said, that commodity nobody can predict. As far as we are concerned, given the outlook, given the crop, given the demand-supply situation, we expect copra to definitely come down by March.
Therefore, next year, and one of the things which we had alluded to in the earlier call in the previous quarter is that one needs to look at a double-digit profitability growth over a two-year CAGR basis, which we are pretty confident about.
If I may just add, I would just want to mention that gross margins definitely have bottomed out, and as we move away, it will only improve from here. As far as A&P spend is concerned, we are very confident that we will continue to spend in double-digit growth in A&P. We have also seen in the past that in any deflationary year followed by any inflationary year followed by deflationary year, we have been able to increase our operating margin by 200 to 250 basis points. Depending on where we end at this year, we are confident that next year operating margin will definitely see an improvement of at least 200 basis points.
Got it. Very clear, Saugata, Pawan. Thank you for that. Second question is on Project Sethu. Again, looking beyond FY 2026, what is the kind of benefit that this should continue over FY 2027, and how should one look into any tangible targets that you have that you can share on Project Sethu? And the benefits of that.
Yeah. It is very difficult to allocate a growth, but I will give you what are the things we have done. The first benefit of Project Sethu has come that wherever we have, as you know, that usually a wholesale dependency means that only they deal with high-velocity power brands. In most of the south and west, they dealt with Parachute. In the north and in the east, they dealt with Nihar. In the north and some parts of the west, they dealt with Shanti Amla. What it has done is Project Sethu has driven range selling. That has led to directly this significant improvement in the trajectory of Wahoo growth. We are extremely confident that we will continue to—and this Wahoo growth, which has happened, is in the high-margin part of the Wahoo growth because Shanti Amla is a slightly low-margin.
The rest of the place is a high-margin, which has also given us the luxury of saying that we are not getting into a BTL fight below the means in terms of trade spend and try to protect the price point fight of Shanti Amla. That operating leverage and that choice, we now have the luxury of choice thanks to Sethu. The second part of Sethu, which we are now going to happen, is that in markets where Parachute is dominant, how do we grow other and diversify the business, especially in the south? The third opportunity which we will tap is, as you know, there is a gap between Parachute rural market share and Parachute urban market share to the extent of at least 14% because I think it is 60 in urban, 60, 60, and around 46, 47 in rural. That gap we want to break.
The fourth part of Sethu, which you will now see, is that the urban part of Sethu, which is we are under-indexed in food, we are under-indexed in chemist and cosmetic outlets. I talked about the fact that in things like honey, muesli, where the opportunity to grab market share because of the number of players is far lower in GT. Secondly, I think in chemist and cosmetic, and this will also give an opportunity for trying out in limited options of Sethu of some of our digital brands into GT, whether it is in chemist, cosmetic, or food outlets. That will be the last phase of Sethu. I think what Sethu ultimately will do is it will first reduce that gap between direct and indirect coverage. Secondly, it will help in diversification, help in range selling, help in far more automation.
One of the other things that has happened is we are controlling the resource allocation. A lot of below-the-line spend that was wasted, we have now, and we will convert that to above-the-line over the next two to three years, which will also help in driving off-take-based growth.
Got it. Thank you, Saugata, for the detailed answer. I think the momentum that we are seeing should ideally continue to grow. That is the confidence that I was looking for. I'm wishing you all the very best.
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Harit Kapoor from Investech. Please go ahead.
Yes, hi. Good evening. Just two questions on mine. If you could just explain, with the copra price coming down by about 15%, how do you see—I mean, how does the market competitive activity work? Is it that you need to make some price revisions, MLH revisions, or given that you had not passed on the full impact, you do not need to make any changes there? How does the copra price movement at this price, how does it impact the market activity for you in terms of MLH and price? That is my first question.
At this current level, I don't see any reason for pricing action. We are very comfortable.
Got it. The way to think about it is that this recent fall actually just plays out in terms of a slightly better margin profile going forward. That is the way to think about it.
Yeah. That's why we have indicated that we are a little more confident of trying to deliver double-digit EBITDA growth in the second half.
Got it. The second question was on the LUP bit. You mentioned that there have been some grammage increases. What part of the portfolio, what percentage mix of the portfolio have you seen these grammage increases? If you could just highlight that.
Okay. Let me just clarify. In Parachute, because of inflation, we have taken MLH drop. In the case of.
Yeah. I was asking more from a GST perspective. Yeah.
GST, yeah. Shanti Amla, yeah, that's some part of the portfolio. That is very marginal because, as I said, we only operate in LUP, mostly in Shanti Amla.
That was in the context of value-added hair oil where on the price point, we could not have.
I could not have.
We could not have reduced the prices, and therefore, we had increased corresponding MLHs in those price point packs. As Saugata mentioned, that's largely in Shanti Amla. The other part of the Wahoo does not have any significant contribution coming in from price point packs.
Got it. Last thing on Wahoo was this quarter obviously has been amongst the highest growth that we've seen in recent times. You mentioned a lot of initiatives. Do you also had a fairly favorable base this time around where we had fairly sharp reductions in the base? I just wanted to get a sense of how much of this is base-led, and your confidence on continuing to maintain may not be this level of trajectory, but at least a double-digit growth trajectory. Is that something that you're fairly confident about?
Okay. Let me give you some piece of statistics. The volume two-year CAGR minus Shanti Amla, because as I said, we have defocused the LUP of Shanti Amla, the value is around mid-single-high single digits, sorry, 9%. And if you take this year also, the volume will be around for the premium part, which is the non-Shanti Amla portfolio, is in double digits. So we are extremely confident of continuing to delivering teens growth in Wahoo.
Fantastic. Those were my questions. Thank you. Wish you all the best.
I think just to add that the very fact that we are focusing on the premium part of it, which also helps long-term margins.
Yes. Okay. Great. Thank you very much.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Anand Shah from Axis Capital. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi and thanks for the opportunity. I mean, a few questions. Firstly, on the digital-first portfolio, I mean, you already sort of are seeming to be clocking much higher than your aspiration. I mean, as per my math, you already probably would be in that INR 1,000 crore ballpark this year itself. Any chance, I think you have already upgraded the ARR guidance to that extent. Any chance there you will surpass? Which parts of the portfolio are firing here mostly? I mean, can you give some granularity?
I think we are getting significant growth in Beardo and Plix. And as you know, Beardo is around in the region of a double-digit EBITDA. Plix has broken even over the next two-three quarters. We'll focus on significantly increasing the EBITDA percentage in Plix so that we are on our way to our 10% target in 2027. Our True Elements are undergoing the integration. As you know, we got 100% sometime in September. Therefore, our first task is to ensure that we integrate it well. We obviously and also start our journey towards breakeven. As we said in the last call, also our focus on Just Herbs and True Elements is first to get the breakeven. I'm okay with a moderate growth. We are most happy to accelerate the personal care part of Plix.
We are working towards improvement in the profitability of the other part of Plix and also driving this one. More importantly, I think we have started the process of synergies of the digital brands, cost synergies to drive profitability, including common sourcing, common logistics, common systems, common media buying, digital media buying. That is a huge one because we believe that while we are capable of growing at a faster pace, it's equally important to focus on the profitability. Once we get the profitability, we push the pedal and accelerate rather than just pushing the pedal.
Got it. Perfect. I mean, on the margin side, would it be fair to say you would already maybe by 2026 be in that low to mid-single digit in terms of margins for the digital-first portfolio?
Overall put together, we may not be able to give you an exact number as to where we will be. But as Saugata mentioned, in Beardo, we have moved to double digits. In the next two quarters, we are hoping that Plix will move to mid to high single digits. We have a job to do in True Elements and Just Herbs. And Saugata also mentioned that in True Elements, also our focus has been to sort of improve the profitability because we have taken this from the promoters in the first year.
We continue to stand by with our guidance of a double-digit operating margin for the next year where we feel that we should be able to reach that mark by the end of next year.
Okay. Wonderful. And one clarification. I mean, True Elements would be clubbed in your foods reporting. That's correct, right?
Yeah. That's true. Also, the foods part of Plix also gets reported in the foods.
In the foods part, yes. Okay. Got it. Got it. And second, I mean, you did indicate that we were sort of, I mean, from inflation to deflation, eventually you see 200 basis points kind of an expansion on average, which has been the historical band as well, 200-250 basis points. If copra is just in this price as if it is today and let's say it does not correct, then would that still hold up?
See, as far as copra is concerned, we believe that it will remain range-bound over the next two to three months. When the flush comes in in the month of March, we will see some meaningful correction. We do not expect the copra prices trajectory to continue at this level. Of course, it has already come off from the peaks for about 15%.
After three to four months, we definitely believe that it will come down.
I think just to answer your question, in the second half, we will get obviously, even if it is at 15% reduction from the peak, there will be flow-through to some to margin anyway.
Yeah. I mean, so you guided that double-digit EBITDA growth in the second half, essentially.
Yes.
Got it. Got it. And in foods, it seems you focused a little bit in the interim as you've hit a bit more in cost correction and profitability to that sense. You were looking at sort of ATEX FY2027 on FY2020 base. Would that still hold up because it seems you're a little bit undershooting on the foods revenue target?
No. We are just doing for two quarters, which is where I said that we are getting some of the things right because if you notice, it's important to grow, stabilize, get the profit, then grow. That is how we do it. A step jump, step jump. It is these two quarters, would I call it a little bit of a pause. It's nothing. I mean, as I said, I think some Q4 things will be back on track. Some of it, as I talked to, I think Pawan alluded to, is that Flipkart adjustment and all those in the base. I think it's a two-quarter issue. There is no, I think there is no need to worry about it.
Just to clarify, when Saugata says pause, pause means at least double-digit growth.
Yeah. Yeah. Our standards of pause is slightly different.
Got it. Got it. Wonderful. Very lastly from me, I mean, any indication on the margins you can share in foods, either on gross and EBITDA or if it is a differential you want to share?
We have discussed in the earlier call that it is a function of what scale do we reach for each of the sub-portfolio. For example, Masala Oats makes company-level operating margins. As and when these businesses will reach a certain scale, we are confident this definitely has the potential to reach up to company operating margin levels. It is a bit of time before we reach there. What we always ensure is that whenever we get into new foods or we equally get into some of the personal care and weighted average gross margin is better than what we have at a portfolio level.
Therefore, that is something which we make it as a complete sacrosanct. And that drives our entire new process, new product innovation process, as well as any acquisition that we do.
I think one shift we have done in foods after our learning, I think we have tried things, is we are going to follow the policy of fewer, bigger, better, and relevant.
Okay. Okay. Wonderful. Thanks. And best of luck. Thanks a lot.
Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Amit Sachdeva from UBS. Please go ahead.
Hi. Good evening. Thank you for taking my question. Thank you, Saugata. My question is on Wahoo. Wahoo, clearly, the trajectory has changed. It is sustaining. I think good to note that the higher margin part of Wahoo is growing. Saugata, what I would like to understand is can you give us a bit of a deep dive into how this change is happening? Is there a channel cut to it? Is there a brand cut to it? Clearly, if you could give us some sort of salience that either MTGT or ECOM, what sort of major transition has come and is sustaining? How is this now margin enhancing? Is the margin at Wahoo level better than company-level margins or at least reaching there? How do we think about this portfolio growing at this rate?
What's the impact on margin for overall company?
Okay. The margin at Wahoo level is higher than the company-level margins. Okay. Significantly higher. Especially the things which we are focusing in. Therefore, basically, what we are doing is a virtuous cycle of growth. Now, coming to what we exactly did, in the past two years, before we repivoted our strategy, I think it was a road to nowhere, which I call it, where we went into a trade spending fight with the sector. Because of competitive action where ATL was withdrawn and put into PTL, we perhaps went into the trap or temporary trap. I believe that for a category to grow, you must invest behind premiumization. You must invest behind brand building. You must invest behind driving consumer penetration instead of just putting money behind trade.
We just did a repivoting where we said we are okay to lose share at the bottom of the pyramid because that share is sometimes channel filling, which we do not want to do. Focus on the higher part of this one and drive premiumization. For example, we are also one part of the premiumization. If you have seen, we have bought some of the international Middle East franchises when focusing on modern trade and this one. There are some large brands like Hair & Care, Jasmine, Alo, Nihar Perfumed Oil, and focus on them. All of them are very significantly higher margin. Invest behind ATL and behind brand building and significantly gain share. If you look at it, we have gained 150 basis points value share. We will continue to gain value share and this value share.
Therefore, our entire KPIs in Wahoo today is value growth, value share, and gross margin.
Got it. That's very helpful, Saugata. Can you give us a little bit of channel cut to what is GT, MT, and ECOM for this Wahoo portfolio?
No. I think it has been a broad-based growth. As I said, K2 has driven Wahoo growth. Our investment behind premiumization is giving us growth in OT.
Okay. Okay. Great. Thanks so much for this, Saugata. Could you give us the oats growth this quarter, please? Food and evidence good, the oats part of the portfolio, how it has grown?
The organic Saffola foods, except some of the discontinued products in the base, has grown by about 8%.
Okay. Okay. Perfect. Thank you, Pawan. Thanks so much for taking my questions.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Percy Panthaki from IIFL Securities. Please go ahead.
Hi, Saugata. Can you just give your estimate? I mean, of course, there will be Nielsen figures, but I would value your estimate more. What is the industry growth of the Wahoo sort of industry right now?
If I have grown, say, 16% and gained share, you can derive a number. It should be in double digits, a little bit entering double digits, definitely in value.
What really has changed here? Because over the last five years, Wahoo as an industry has been a very slow-growing industry. And now it has come to a 10% growth at an industry level. We have not seen any major recovery in macro consumption across many of the FMCG segments. In the past, we have held that Wahoo will grow sort of or slow down, whatever, in line with the personal care industry. It is clearly sort of the growth or slowdown, at least right now, seems to be divorced from the personal care industry.
I think two things I would say. Firstly, at a macro level, I think starting with us and at least one more player is doing fundamentally the right things in terms of investing behind growth. Secondly, I think, as you know, the category was underindexed in the OT. We are doing a lot of category management work in OT to drive the saliency of the category compared relatively to the other, this one, which is leading to premiumization. I think fundamentally category building and premiumization work is happening. We had perhaps stopped that, and we had got defocused for 18 months when we started perhaps getting into too much focus on LUPs. That is leading this category growth.
Understood. Understood. Also, how do we see the foods and the digital brands business over a medium term, let's say three- to four-year kind of period? What kind of CAGR growth target and what kind of margin targets three to four years down the line would be something that you would consider reasonable?
I think firstly on foods, some of the scaled-up businesses should get into a company EBITDA in the next three to four years. I think our first milestone for the digital business is to get into the 10% EBITDA and then sequentially move forward. The growth momentum we have indicated already as far as food is concerned to 8X and in this one to 2.5, this one for FY2027. I think we are able to maintain. At the end of the day, also, as far as digital is concerned, we will continue to ensure that we look at some inorganic opportunities also over the next two to three years.
Okay, Saugata. That's all from me. Thanks and all the best.
Thank you.
Thank you. Our next question is from the line of Nihal Mahesh Jham from HSBC. Please go ahead.
I think, Guru, you may be audible.
Yes.
Quick question from my side. When you mentioned about the foods part about munchies and peanut butter, is it that these products have been discontinued or just that the growth of this part of the portfolio was muted, which led to the overall slowdown?
No, no, no. We have mostly discontinued it because, see, again, as I said, that we talked about fewer, bigger, better. Anything which is not a significant opportunity, I think one of the biggest learnings has been that if you want to participate in food, scale and profitability go hand in hand. Okay? Therefore, anything which you cannot really make big, this is our learning. Let us not do niche things. We have actually Plix and True Elements, two brands to actually experiment with niche things. Saffola will actually drive scale.
Got it.
Because if I have to do peanut butter, I can do with True Elements. I did not do it with Saffola.
Understood, Saugata.
My second question was I just wanted to clarify. When you mentioned about double-digit margin, this is for the entire foods and digital business by FY2027, right? It's not specifically for the digital part of the business that we.
Digital business, please. Digital brands. We talked about digital brands.
Including the oats and the core Saffola part of the portfolio.
No, no, no. Oats is not a digital brand. No, no, no, no, no. There are four digital brands, which are Plix, Beardo, True Elements, Just Herbs.
Understood that. Final question was in the Plix part of it. Now, obviously, as a brand, the proposition of the foods part is very clear with the hero SKUs like apple cider vinegar and the proposition on weight management. It's obviously great to see that even the personal care part of the portfolio is sort of an equal contributor to growth. Especially wanted to understand which are the hero SKUs or segments specifically for the personal care part of Plix. Maybe if there is a proposition there that you may just want to highlight, which may be not something we may be aware of.
The proposition, if you look at trends in Western countries, is about hair and skin food. Whatever is good for you, how do you transfer that into personal care? The concept is about plant-based hair and skin food. It is science based with nature. For example, you have watermelon. You have different other, what else is there?
Pineapple.
Pineapple, guava. Of course, we have rosemary. Basically, what we are doing is that is the concept. Getting into hair and skin categories and mixture of with science because obviously the actives are science. That is the proposition. It still is plant-based, which is this one. What we are talking about is that whatever you consume cannot be hair and skin food, which are essentially problem-solving or enhancer. Each of the products has a strong functionality.
Just one quick follow-up. You expect the mix in Plix or personal care and foods to sort of remain similar at the ballpark of?
We are deliberately driving a higher personal care for ensuring that because that will also ensure profitability. That will also drive traction of growth because at the end of the day, I think similarly, however, having said that, as far as nutraceuticals is concerned, also over the next couple of years, we will also look at some of the other platforms of nutraceuticals. As you know, any nutraceutical brand can extend into five or six areas, which is basically weight management, heart health, gut health, bone health, sleep, stress, and diabetes. Technically, the good thing about Plix is the brand name does not stand for any particular problem. Therefore, we can extend that. That is the second stage. The term of Plix is actually infinite in some way.
In terms of both personal care and nutraceuticals, it's one of the highest terms any digital brand can have.
Understood. That's very clear, Saugata. Wish you all the best. Thank you.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, if you wish to ask questions, you may please press star and one. Our next question comes from the line of Jaykumar, from sorry, that's Jaykumar Doshi from Kotak. Please go ahead.
Hi. Thanks for the opportunity. Actually, continuing on the earlier question on Plix, could you give us some color in terms of what are your top five hero products? What is the contribution of these products to overall sales of Plix? Over the past two years, it has done phenomenally well. Are your hero products continuing to grow at the same pace as the overall brand growth, or is it also driven by a long tail of new introduction products that you may have added? Any color you can share on repeat uptakes? What does the channel mix look like today? I think it is predominantly still online. How do you see some of these things change over the next one or two years as it scales up to maybe INR 1,000 crore or close to INR 1,000 crore top line?
Whatever you can share on Plix, our understanding is fairly limited of this space as well as Plix. It will help. That is it. Thank you.
In a lighter vein, I must say you are asking me due diligence questions almost. It's even more than a pitch document. Let me just give you a broad strategic flavor to this. Plix has participants in nutraceuticals where the hero product is ACV. Having said that, we are also looking at value addition in that space. There are flavors. There is a no-sugar variety. One of the biggest things we have done in Plix is staying true to two things: having hero SKUs contributing significantly to it and not growing through just mindless innovation, which I call spray and pray. Secondly, there is a significantly strong profitable D2C business and a marketplace. It is a very limited, what I call, brick-and-mortar play, but a primarily digital play. Having said that, there are opportunities. For example, we have specific SKUs like there is a coconut powder.
There's a INR 75 smaller ACV, which is there, which we are experimenting with. As far as the personal care is concerned, we have both hair and skin products like hair growth. We are present in some of the skin products. Again, there, our effort is ensuring for a successful digital business, it's extremely important that the hero SKUs contribute to at least a majority, 50-60% plus. In our case, it's higher. Number two, they also continue to deliver high organic growth because it is extremely critical that that delivers your sustainable, profitable growth for the brand. I think that's the broad this one. Off late, obviously, we have focused a little bit on personal care growing ahead of this one. Plix also has an international business. It is available in the Middle East. It's available in the US.
Therefore, that is another area we are trying to grow. Our initial result, especially in the Middle East, in UAE, has been extremely encouraging.
That's helpful. Thank you. One more separate question. If you were to sort of, if we were to assume that Parachute was at normalized margins today, what would be your company-level consolidated EBITDA margin in first half? Or to put it the other way, what's the impact on % margins that Parachute has had in the first half of this year?
I think the last part of the margin erosion is because of Parachute margin compression. To work out backward numbers, you don't want to get into all of that. We can only suggest that, as we've already mentioned earlier, the second half, we can expect double-digit profit growth. Difficult to give a guidance because there are a lot of moving parts in terms of how the commodity cost will move, what impact will the pricing have. In the second half, we expect double-digit profit growth at EBITDA level. Next year, of course, we would be targeting much higher because we expect the prices to go down. Therefore, we've seen in the past as well that in deflationary years, we make up for the lost margins in the previous year.
Actually, I was trying to understand. You've made significant progress in foods, and you intend to make progress in Plix on profitability. If and when Parachute gets back to normalized margins, is there a possibility that your percentage margin band would actually be higher than when you were two years, three years back, given this portfolio margin improvement sort of is also helping? Or you'll just get back to the earlier band?
Fairly possible. Again, we've discussed this earlier as well that there are margin improvement levers that are in place. Let's say if you ask me from next two to three years perspective, of course, it can go beyond our peak that we've delivered in the past.
Perfect. Thank you so much.
I think immediate focus next year is to do the catch-up so that over a two-year cadre, it's comfortable double digits. Number two is continue to focus on volume growth. I think that is equally important. The fact that how do you maintain top quartile volume growth?
Excellent. Thank you very much.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, we will take that as the last question. I would now like to hand the conference over to the management for closing comments. Over to you, gentlemen.
Thanks for listening in on the call. To conclude, our performance has kept us well poised to advance on our key strategic priorities. Volume growth in India was well ahead of the sector despite elevated pricing and transitory impact of the GST reform. We continue to channel our efforts towards our diversification agenda and remain committed to consistent brand-building investments. The international business has visibly accelerated its growth momentum and is expected to maintain the same. Going ahead, we are fairly confident of delivering top quartile volume growth in India business. With early signs of easing cost headwinds, we will strive to deliver improved profit growth as well. That is it from our side. If you have any further queries, please feel free to reach out to our IR team, and they will be happy to assist. Thank you and have a great evening.
Thank you. On behalf of Marico Limited, that concludes this conference. Thank you all for joining us. You may now disconnect your lines.