Q1 25/26

Jul 24, 2025

Ladies and gentlemen, good day and welcome to the Bikaji Foods International Q1FY26 earnings conference call. As a reminder, all participant lines will be in 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 then zero on your touchtone phone. Please note that this call is being recorded. With this, I now hand the conference over to Ms. Hazel Rathor. Thank you, and over to you ma'am. Am. Thank you. Good afternoon everyone. Thank you for joining us for Bikaji Foods International Ltd Q1FY26 earnings conference call. From the Management we have with us Mr. Rishabh Jain, CFO, and Mr. Manoj Verma, COO. I now request Mr. Rishabh Jain to take us through the key opening remarks, after which we can open the floor for the question and answer session. Thank you. Over to you sir. Thank you very much for joining the call. So from Bikaji lens, me and Manoj have joined the call and we have seen a strong quarter performance with strong 15% growth on consolidated basis and 11% growth on standalone basis. From last 6-7 months we've seen good demand improvement across each month on month. If you see third quarter of last year, we have been at 5-6, 6% growth versus last quarter was good and this quarter on month on month basis we have seen good demand recovery across each rural as well as urban. Also, we entered into a festivity and festivities always big for us. Being sweets play an important role and we enter, we just closing July and this we're seeing good demand from each from sweets as well as all ethnic snacks perspective. We're seeing good demand and see good sign of good second quarter going on. From bottom line perspective, this quarter we have seen one of the best quarters in last many quarters where overall from consolidated lens we touched a 35% gross margin with PLI and without PLI also it's closed 33.7% on standalone basis, also 33.6% gross margin launched on without PLI, with PLI and 32.3% gross margin without PLI. From gross margin lens also we've seen good strong performance in last 4-5-6 quarters. Basically, also from third quarter, if you see from third quarter last year, we have gone far ahead and we've seen good gross margin EBITDA improvement. Also, this year we have seen a good rain, good crop and raw material is supported as being all, be it all key purchase and key purchase edible has also softened. This has also played an instrumental role in improving gross margins on timely basis. Also, we increased the prices of key ethnic snacks as well as western snacks. In last two and a half quarters we have increased prices between 2-2.5%. That has also helped us in regaining our margin back. From EBITDA lens, overall from console basis we had touched EBITDA of close to 14.8% and without PLI 13%. Close to 15% EBITDA with PLI and from standalone basis also with just close to 15.8% EBITDA with PLI and close to 13.5% EBITDA without PLI. From standalone lens also we are touching close to 13-14% EBITDA. This quarter marks the instrumental achievement like we also done JV with, initiated and taken approval from both for JV with one of the biggest group in Nepal, Nepal, that strong partnership building capability and talent. Basically, Nepal CG Group is one of the biggest, biggest company in Nepal. They have another best distribution and we see Bikaji being there with partnering with them, they will take a great market share in Nepal in coming years and we see good business coming on in next three to five years. Yeah, besides this, as we said that now we would be in our distribution game. We have added further about 15,000 outlets in the last three months, taking our direct coverage to 3.26 lakh outlets. In terms of our marketing initiatives, as we have committed and budgeted 2%, quarter one is relatively a low spend quarter and quarter two becomes a very high spend market for our marketing spends. That continues our investment on digital marketing, which is social media, that's on and we were there all across. Also, this has been a quarter where we've initiated certain NPDs which are there in the pipeline and have very recently got launched. People talk about the healthier snacks, so the Millet Bhujia, just a brand extension of our Millet Bhujia, is what we have launched this quarter talking about our growth. Overall, volume growth is 7.5% for the quarter. Revenue growth is 14.2%. Ethnic snacks, which is our core category, has grown at 11.2%. Packaged sweets, which looks pretty low at this point in time at 3.1%, but this is a seasonality business, so that is going to get recovered in quarter two, and so is western snacks at 44.2% revenue growth. Papad, a small category, and we pick slow only, so it is at 5.8% growth. The way we look at our business, which is core focused in other markets, core has grown at 8.5%, focused markets at 11.5%, and other markets is at 26.5% growth. Exports has done extremely well with a 60.3% market revenue growth in the last quarter. Our family packs have grown by far higher than the impulse packs, which is 5 and 10 rupees pack. The family pack has delivered a 15.8% growth, whereas impulse packs are at 8.2%. From top-line length, we have touched top-line of close to INR 653 crore, growing at 14.2% compared to last year, and overall from quarter-on-quarter, which is also we're growing at 6 point close to 7%, versus EBITDA from if you see from last quarter, we grow around 30% around from EBITDA lens and touching INR 96 crore EBITDA in this quarter. That's all from the presentation. We are happy to take all the answers. Thank you. 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 touch tone telephone. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star and two. Participants are requested to use handsets while asking a question. Ladies and gentlemen, we will wait for a moment while the question queue assembles. The first question comes from the line of Avnish Roy from Nuvama. Please go ahead. Congrats and good recovery in both volumes and margins. My first question is on the family pack versus impulse pack. Family packs are growing 2x of the impulse. Generally, we see in FMCG that currently, although there is some recovery in terms of the urban demand, initial sign generally downsizing is happening and smaller packs are going faster. Is this a conscious effort on your side that you're offering more value to customer at family package? Impulse packs are very important from a recruitment purpose and for overall market share purpose. If you could clarify any wallops here and how have you seen the market leader, have they also seen family pack grow faster than the impulse pack? Thanks, Avnish, to the question. If you look at the small pack or the impulse pack, it is not that they have grown slow in terms of category, it is what we have. We could have done better on the impulse pack side. That's one straight to your question. The reason for that has been that what we have witnessed from the market, there are lots of small and local players, so huge discounting and all that stuff has happened in this INR 5 pack primarily, which is what has helped the category grow. In terms of our conscious call, we didn't get into that, those price wars and all that stuff, which is also on the back of, if you look at relatively low growth on our western side. How we look at it is that come this quarter two onwards, this should get back to normal. Not that we have done differentially higher on our large packs. It is by virtue of our brand strength, our distribution, and our availability across channels that the momentum continues. One clarification here, it's mostly regional players which are more aggressive in the western snacks or even the Pepsis of the world or ITC. Second is western snacks is around 10% of your business, broadly 9.2%. Is that western snacks is mostly in the INR 5 and INR 10 pack for you? Yeah. Western snacks is, yes, primarily INR 5 and INR 10. We also do have large packs for modern trade and all that stuff, but that's a limited space in that. INR 5 and INR 10 is certainly big in this. In terms of your question, the large players, which is in likes of Pepsi and ITC, if you put together these two companies, their market share in, say, western snacks would not be more than 50%, even less in that. There is a huge room and that's where the regional and local players play pretty strong. Understood. My second question is on the two, three laggard categories in your core business, which is 76% of your business, ethnic snack. You have done quite well in the three smaller categories, which is a bit counterintuitive. Your growth is below 6%. You did explain the western snacks and you said it will come back on track in packaged sweets and papad in the new states. Is this a focus area? For example, in focus states are you also driving packaged sweets and papad generally? What we have seen, these two categories are a bit volatile in numbers. I understand packaged sweets is linked to the festivals and marriage season. Is there a drive to take this to new geographies or is it in the existing geographies only where most of the business continues to remain for these two segments? No. Papad goes everywhere and so do the sweets. We have been calling and we take pride in saying that we are the second largest papad manufacturer in the country, handmade papad after Lijjat Papad. This is not just in the core states, this is across the country and even in the exports market. It so happens that papad again, during seasons and the wedding season, the demand of sweets and papad goes obnoxiously high during these wedding seasons. In fact, in the times we have witnessed that we run short of capacity for papad. Most importantly, this time what has happened is that the number of wedding dates or the weddings were less than what it was in the last or previous year. Therefore, it's reflecting in papad. Sweets is a matter of time, and as Rishabh just spoke, you'll see surprising numbers coming in in quarter two sales for sweets. An immediate recovery will be seen. Last question, so Nepal, why do a joint venture? Almost every Indian FMCG company is present in Nepal. We don't see too many joint ventures. Why not go 100% on your own? Second, is this INR 5 crore loan which you have given to Bikaji Bakes. Could you clarify on that? What exactly is this business? Lastly, on the two store addition which you have done, from 13 stores quarter on quarter it is becoming 15. If you could discuss, is this basically your acquisition Hazelnut where you have added, and any insights if you can share of your own store, how they are doing, and Hazelnut, are you happy now because few quarters have gone? Generally, most retail companies in the QSR space are not seeing good times at all except maybe Domino's, one exception. Broadly this space is extremely challenging currently, and if you see the software job addition also, TCS has delayed and overall job addition in IT sector is low. In that context, would you slow down your store addition in Hazelnut and in terms of your own store? Yeah, Avneet. We'll take your question one by one. Starting from your first question, which is on the joint venture in Nepal. Bikaji as a brand is pretty old and pretty strong in the Nepal market. The challenges we were facing were that there's huge custom duty or the import duty, which was there and which was making our product non-competitive. That was the reason that we thought of having a joint venture and eventually start producing there and selling there. That will make our products much more competitive and will leverage the brand strength we have. Talking about the joint venture company, which is CG Group, who owns YY brand and which is the highest distributed FMCG brand in the country, that's what we are riding along with the CG Group. We see a huge growth potential initially just by making our products available in length and breadth of the country, and second by their clout and their strong presence in the store. That's the sole objective of having this joint venture exclusively for the Nepal market. Now, talking about the loan and the other stores, I would hand over to Isha. In this quarter we have added two stores in the Hazelnut Factory. Basically, Hazelnut Factory is doing extremely well for us and we are largely satisfied with the performance they are delivering. They say they will open close to eight or nine more stores in the next nine months. They will open a store a month, so by the end of this year they will be having close to 19 or 20 stores, largely in UP and NCR area. In the last 6:00, they opened a store and we are seeing good results coming in each quarter, each retail outlet. We are seeing good numbers versus popularity at the overall level in retail, also in Hazelnut Factory, and we are largely satisfied with the investment we made. From Bikaji length, we opened one store in Rajasthan this year and we'll open three or four more stores, with more in the pipeline. We also see good results coming in from that from a retail lens. We are not your proper QSR; our major focus in each retail chain is on packaged sweets and gifting. That contributes big numbers in our overall QSR, like you see in Bikaji. Also, we are offering in Bombay where close to 55% to 60% of sales come from gifting sweets and our packaged range where we display the complete range of Bikaji products. That's a major focus for us in our retail QSR outlet. That's number one. Number two, from Bikaji Bakes length, it's a 100% subsidiary focusing on making some bakery items. We are already into biscuits and a small portion of us are into biscuits, but bakery is doing good in India and we see good potential. That's a small investment we will do and we'll focus on doing CRO and everything, small bakery, bakery investment. That's what we did. What brand and mostly e-commerce for bakery. Mostly e-commerce. Yeah, mostly e-commerce. What brand? Bikaji brand. Yeah, it's early to say, sorry. Yeah, you are saying something. You'll come back. Of course, it's in. Currently, it's in Bikaji brand. One last follow up and I'll end there. In terms of CG Group, they do have a reasonable presence in some states through YY noodles. Through a non-equity, I'm not asking on equity partnership in India, to a distribution synergy in terms of YY noodles and Bikaji getting distributed in some of the Northeast, is that a possibility? Because they do have some reasonable. We are having very strong presence in Northeast. We are holding plus 55% market share in Assam. We hold a very strong position and we don't see any collaboration in India as of now, it's just a Nepal joint venture. Thanks, that's all from my view. Yeah, thank you. Thank you. The next question comes from the line of Nitin from MK. Please go ahead. Yeah, thanks for the opportunity. I basically wanted to have more insights around month-on-month demand recovery. Can you throw some light, and additionally, like you have answered the previous question around some of the markets that discounted players have emerged, you can call out any specific market and you are hopeful that in Q2 things will be back. How are those scenarios emerging, can you please help on that? We have seen good demand recovery in the last six, seven months. Like you've seen quarter three, October, November. This quarter was tough for us and for the industry also. From February onwards we've seen good recovery. April was a little dull because we didn't do good, so March was good. April, but May, June, July we're seeing good month-on-month recovery in demand and being we are entering into festivity, we see good demand recovery across each state, each core as well as focus state in our overall city. Okay, thank you. In terms of this discounting which is going on in part of your portfolio and recovery in Q2, how are you confident that the discounting will go down or are we taking some action here? Can you please. I'm not, we're not clear on terms of discounting. What is the exact question there? No. You were highlighting that, like particularly western snacks, there has been lots of huge discounting. Yeah, not okay. I think it's not about discounting, it's about their selling price. They offer lots of, you know, offers and all this stuff. Right. What happens is that these are the mushrooming kind of stuff. That's not sustainable and which is what. I will update our INR 10 and all that stuff. Yes, we certainly will not go the discounting way or try to match prices and all. That's what we'll never do. Okay. Thank you. My second question is around your gross margin recovery. Adjusted for PLI it is at around 34% which is a healthy level. There is a sequential recovery of 225 bps. Can you help me understand the factors which have aided gross margin recovery? Also, a comment around sustainability of the margin ahead could be helpful. Basically it worked both ways. We also increased price in the last two quarters and also raw material has supported us. In both ways it has worked in our favor. We've done some, we run some saving program in the organization which is running from the last nine months. That's where we are majorly focusing on a few products which are having high-end gross margins. Multiple things are going on to improve the gross margin. Currently we are close to 35% gross margin at consolidated level. Overall at standalone level also we are at highest gross margin and we see that in the next nine months also we'll be maintaining the same gross margin. What we see, unless we see any major disruption in oil, edible oil. In the next three, four months, if we see anything, good crop, good rain in our core state like Rajasthan, we have procured major raw materials and we've seen good rain this year. We don't see any major changes in raw material prices for what we are buying currently. Yeah, this is helpful. One last thing, in terms of your presentation when you highlight raw material prices, is this the spot prices you highlight or is it like consumption price? The indexing, it provides convention price. Okay. That way, like palm oil prices was in, as for my calculation, was around INR 130. Has been done. We'll see in quarter two. Yeah, angular price will remain at the same level. We don't see any major changes because specialty and demand is good this year. We don't see any major correction in edible oil. It will be the same, largely same level, what we have seen in quarter one. Okay, you don't think that whatever the reduction has happened will flow into the numbers. Palm oil prices basically will stay. Here, palm oil prices came down, but we use multiple oils like palm, cotton, rice, and palm, and reduced, but other oil is not reduced. Okay, got it. This is really helpful. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. The next question comes from the line of Run Mai Joglikar from Assetsi Mehta Investment Intermediaries. Please go ahead. Hi sir, thank you for the opportunity. The line for the participant has disconnected. We'll move to the next question. The next question comes from the line of Vishal Dudwala from Trinetra Asset Managers. Please go ahead. Hi sir, am I audible to you? Yes, yeah. I just have one question about. Your second half of this year. Every Diwali and the festival season, like rural ports, always demanded anticipated easing in commodity cost. What are your key volume and margin assumption for H2? If we look at Diwali and when you talk about this, this primarily gets covered broadly in quarter two, and the leftover would be in quarter three. Right. Gross margins, the way we look at, I mean the guidance what we have given, we will stay within those numbers. Like any new festive SKU launches, are you piling up in your plan or not? No sir, nothing as such. It's about our gift boxes. Every year we come up with some new designs. It's the assortment, different packs and all that stuff. Otherwise, if you talk about any new category, no, the packs, you will see some better design, some little bit change, tweaking in that stuff. I mean that's what we certainly do to keep up the excitement and engagement of the customers. Okay, that's it from my side as of now. I will wait in a queue. Thank you. Thank you. The next question comes from the line of Darshit Vora from Asit C Mehta Investment Intermediaries. Please go ahead. Hello. Hi. Am I audible? Yeah, you are audible. All right. Thank you for the opportunity. I have a couple of questions. The first thing being that what is the timeline, what kind of internal target are we expecting for the volume to come up to double digit levels? We've seen about three quarters of single digit increase. Any visibility over that? We have seen good demand recovery across month on month. For the rest of the year, we see at least 9-10% volume growth. That's the plan and that's numbers we are looking at at least. All right, 9, 10% and that would be more towards the second half. More from quarter two onwards. All right. About this Nepal joint venture that we have done, can you give some kind of details with respect to, say, capital outlay or some kind of timeline for ramp up of distribution or some kind of revenue potential that we have in mind? Yeah. Basically from Nepal perspective, we'll jointly open a plant in Nepal where we'll invest close to INR 30 crore. Currently, INR 15 crore will be outlayed from Bikaji and the balance will be something, it's equal 50-50 maybe. Currently, our top-line is under INR 20 crore. We see good potential as the brand is very strong there. Overall, due to custom duty and all, we're not able to supply in the Nepal market. We see good potential coming up and using and driving distribution of CG Group YY. We see at least INR 50 crore top-line in the next two years. That's a target we're taking, INR 50 crore. 1000 crore of top-line in the next two years. Yeah. All right. Finally, just from my side, in the previous quarter you had mentioned that our gross margins were expectations of around 30, 31%. This time around we've come at 33% plus and we hope to maintain that sustainably in a way. How do we plan on doing this given the already taken initiatives? On full year basis, what we see that on standalone basis. Standalone basis you see at this gross margin of 32% plus, that's the target what we're taking on standalone basis without PLI. We are on track of doing the same. All right, that's it from my side. Thank you. Thank you. The next question comes from the line of Shirish Pardesi from Motilal Oswal. Please go ahead. Hi, Mama Dushab. Thank you and good afternoon. Just quick question on Nepal. The per capita consumption in Nepal for. Noodles is about 7 kg. Do you have any data? What is the, because I do understand Viber is practically about 100% distribution and it's a very strong noodle market. In that context you might say that you have the right to win. I was more curious, what is the namkeen or maybe non-western snack kind of consumption if you have any data to support. Hi Suresh. Nepal as such, I mean we don't subscribe to Nielsen data so would not be able to answer in this straight one number. Certainly what we can tell is that looking at the markets and visiting these stuff and all, this seems to be clearly about INR 600-700 crore market kind of stuff. That's what we look at it. When we look at competition and primarily from these Indian manufacturers such as Haldiram, Bikano, they're pretty much strong there. There's a consumption base as well. That's what we see. When we look at internally, simply put, currently our distribution was lacking. We were more towards India border side, that's what was it. Now if we were to go up Nepal, that one is the transport cost which makes things expensive. The second thing is someone is to build a route to market. The objective of this joint venture is to leverage on their route to market and brand which is already established, push that brand there. That's what it is. As Rishabh said in terms of our business opportunity, we can more than double in next two to three years' time. That I understand. I was just more curious because in the press release you have said that you will manufacture, trade and do the marketing spends. Obviously you should give some number that there is an investment of INR 30 crore. Is manufacturing going to. Solve the distribution problem. Because if the market is very large, and if there are already established players which are there, and you have been selling some quantity from India. I was more curious what is the number which you. I mean the INR 50 crore number on the tier of essay looks very conservative. If you can tell me what is the export business we have done in FY25 to Nepal. Yeah. To your question again, Shirish, let me bring to the table, the import duty is 55% which makes you less competitive in those markets. This would help us ease down on those numbers and therefore ability to invest behind building a business goes as much. That's one. Second is if you look at Haldiram, they have also gone the same way. They have also done a joint venture partnership there and so has Bikano. The top three players from India are these three. They already have started or are about to start. That's what is the status. Okay, coming back to India business, just a quick question on the PLI. What kind of PLI have you factored in for FY26. For FY26 we have factored close to INR 50 crore PLI in our book. It will divide equally in each quarter. Okay, this last question on Hazelnut Factory, what kind of revenue momentum we can. Expect exiting quarter four in this year because obviously there is a lot of learning coming. Type of INR 100 crore ARR. That's what we'll see. Okay. Any color because now you're settling down. Margin exit when you do INR 100 crore, what kind of gross margin you would achieve? This year will be a lot of expansion. The major focus will be driving growth and driving open stores this year. Maybe next year will be 8 to 10% EBITDA. This year will be largely 4 to 5%, 4 to 6% type of EBITDA. Okay. All right. Thank you, Rishabh, and all the best. Thank you. Thank you. A reminder to all participants, you may press star and one to ask a question. The next question comes from the line of Hatem Brochwala from JM Mutual Fund. Please go ahead. Yeah. Hello sir. Thank you for the opportunity. Sir, my question is that currently all the input commodities are now correcting. Is there scope for us to cut down on the product prices to drive volume growth? Yes, of course. I mean, we look at how competition is moving. If we were to drive volume growth, those are the measures as a business and as the steering committee in our company how we look at it. We certainly evaluate and we keep doing these things as the commodity price eases. Is there an opportunity without impacting margin, current margin? We will only do this if we have that ability to invest. It is not at cost of margin. There is a target of improving bottom line as well. It is not by eroding margins and we give some extra offers that will not. As you started, as we see the ease in commodity prices, that's what we will pass to the consumer. We have done it in the past as well. Okay. Thank you, sir. Thank you. The next question comes from the line of Tuisha from Rare Enterprises. Please go ahead. Thank you for taking my question. Am I audible? Yeah, you are. Yes, ma'. Am. My question is regarding your new product launches, in particular the Millet Bhujia. If you can please share any kind of commentary on how the market response has been and what you think the opportunity could be for this healthy snack segment, and if you have any more healthy snack launches in the coming quarters that you've planned. Thanks. Yeah, I think it's too early to comment on this Millet Bhujia because it has just come out. We will be doing some pilot stuff and we'll be riding on these QCon channels and all that stuff. Distribution would get built over a period of time, but the primary pace of what we can say is that when we launch, there's a huge product testing what we do and it has come out very well. That's what was the panel and that's how the panel gave clearance to launch it up. Talking about the healthy food, one is there's nothing called healthy food. You may say healthy snack, you may say less unhealthy. That's a better way to put that stuff. We also have a range of products which are roasted, healthier, but the market still is very, very niche. As much voice what we hear about healthy snacks, if we go down the consumer, in Indian markets at least, it is not as much there. I think it will take about five, seven more years, that's when people will be talking even more about the healthiest snacks. Companies would then start focusing on that stuff. To be future ready, we have a range of products which are amongst the healthier ones. Okay, thanks. That helps. Thank you. The next question comes from the line of Aditya Tambi from Haverock Capital. Please go ahead. Hi sir. Thank you for the opportunity. I just wanted to get some updates on the frozen food segment that you are planning to export from India. There is currently the market leader which already does it. Any plan on how it is happening, if we are able to get into stores or gain some market share? Yeah. On the frozen food, we do not sell in the Indian domestic market. This is primarily for our exports business. This frozen part has a huge share of business in our exports business, to the upwards of 35%. That's where it is. That also would have been better if we had our capacities earlier because we were also outsourcing and stuff. That's where it is. The way we have built our capacities, and this again we call it being future ready. As and when the country or the channels are matured enough to maintain and sell these frozen products, which need end-to-end cold chain, that's when we shall be launching it in the Indian market. Not in the next couple of years is what this would be. Export business product. Right. Just a follow up on that. Can you guys clear on how the market is changing? If someone is already storing a competitor's product, then how do you convince them to go for Bikaji instead of them or to keep both of them in their stores? Today, if you look at any category, the categories are highly fragmented and you will see a lot of players playing around within the store itself. Their exclusivity no more exists. That's one. How we'll do it is, one, in terms of course we have to be consumer preference. Therefore, if your product doesn't taste well or the quality is not up to the mark, you will never get a repeat. What we also do is that we do some branding activation in these stores, which is the stimulus for a retailer to keep and place our product, give visibility of our product. Third is the clout we have. In the stores where we already are selling Bikaji products, this becomes an addendum to the list they have. This is how we go about it. Also, what we realized was that many a times we ran out of stock. I mean, we did not have the ability to supply the orders because we were also outsourcing during the season time. If you look at it, that's where the demand is highest. In the yesteryear we were struggling. Now, if you see, numbers speak louder than what I would say. If you look at our quarter one export business growth, it is outstanding. This is what has helped us. Right, sir. Thank you for answering. Also, sir, on the Hazelnut Factory acquisition, like you already agree to that, we are adding one outlet per month. That is what we see. How do you see this over 2, 3 years of highways phenomena? Do you see this only as. A tier one opportunity? Or do you plan to scale this up faster? Or after this year we might go lower on these store additions? How do you think about this? Store addition would continue to drive on our direct coverage. What happens is that may not translate into indirect coverage because it will be a diminishing return beyond the point. When you cover directly, your clout on the store or ability to sell range is always high. What we are looking at is that currently we are at 3.25 lakh outlets. The target we have is to exceed 3.5 lakh outlets by end of the year. Year on year we shall be adding 50,000 outlets. That is the target we have for ourselves and should reach 500,000 outlets in our direct coverage. That is the target we have in the next three years. Also, on the Hazelnut Factory, the acquisition we did. What about that addition? From Hazelnut Factory what we see is that this year is a major expansion. What we've done, what we'll do this year, from next year onwards they will open Hazelnut Factory stores every year. Thank you. We were focusing on our focus stage. Do we have any updates, like if there were any market share gains, if we could see some? Wins in these focus states. Like any market share gain that happened over the last one or two quarters, across all six focus states there's a movement northwards, upwards of market share gain across states. What happens is that the numeric distribution as well, both these metrics have moved up. There are certain states which are now close to 6% market share as well. For example, 5.8% in Chhattisgarh if you look at it, which is focused. Karnataka, if I speak about, is upwards of 3% market share. There are certain movements and nowhere have we seen that it has not flowed. Simply put. Okay, so thank you sir for answering. I'll get back in the queue. Thank you. The next question comes from the line of Priyank from Belem Capital. Please go ahead. Yeah, hi sir, I'm sorry if I missed out. Organic volume, the standard volumes of excluding acquisitions. Sorry, the voice is not audible. Hi sir, is it audible now? Hello? Yes. Yes. Yes sir, it's audible now. Cool, sir, sorry, I would have missed out. What would have been the volume growth excluding the acquisitions in the standalone business, would it be 5, 5.5%? Close to 6%? Close to 6.5%, sure. The refresh though, the additional, I think the extra offerings that we had even last year would ease out in the base by September quarter. Right. Till that time the volume growth would undershoot whatever aspirations we always had about 12, 13%. Right, right. Last year also quarter four of 2025, we have seen full volume growth of 10% extra that were in quarter one we started slowing down. From quarter two onwards we will see good volume growth because in quarter two there will be no extra damage in last year number. Understood. No, because till September quarter we had a 15% volume growth and I'm assuming that there would have been. Yes, you are right. Yeah. For the full year, for the first half we would have a mid single digit volume growth and for the second half the aspiration continues to be double digits. Is that what. Yes, yes, yes, yes. Got it. The question on the operating cost, when we looked at the total operating cost in terms of per kilo, how should we model it out for next few years, what should be the trajectory given the distribution reach that we are expanding, given the size that we are reaching, what should be the operating cost per kilo trending, going ahead. Basically we don't see business as operating cost per kilo year on year or month on month basis. We see as a key cost, we measure key cost like logistic cost is big for us, employee cost is big for us and manufacturing cost. We see each cost is a big five, six points are there which are big for us from cost perspective. We are majorly focusing on bringing more efficiency in each cost, each cost length. Currently we are into expansion phase, be it in employee. We had a lot of expand, a lot of addition in employee space as well as frontliners in sales in last two years and result started coming in last two quarters and we'll see a lot of improvement in employee cost as well. Number two. Manufacturing cost, we are doing a lot of energy. We are moving to solar and everything. We'll see efficiency in each cost measure. We are currently close to 50% utilization. Running plant at lower, lower shift or lower utility is always a costly affair when we have fixed salary, fixed employee costs, all costs are fixed. Once we start leveraging this capacity and take this to 70-75%, we'll see at least 0.3 to 0.50 basis point improvement in margin every year for the next two to three years. I understand you have multiple cost line items, but if I have to look forward for total other expenses excluding employee cost, it is somewhere around 15% of your sales. What we see is that it will be improving by 0.50 basis point each year. From other expense lengths, you will see there are a few costs which are sitting in consultancies or many other third-party costs and third-party manufacturing costs, which we'll see improving in the coming two to three years. For this year, should we consider 50 bps or starting 2027 only? We should consider 50 bps improvement starting 2027. Starting 2027. Okay. Yeah, sure, clear. Thank you. Thank you. The next question comes from the line of Dharmil Shah from Delmit Capital Management. Please go ahead. Hi, thank you for taking my question. The first is on the competition. You mentioned that whenever the raw material price increases largely from the local players. Just wanted to understand, are these the unbranded players which compete in such situations or these are the regional brands. That primarily compete with you. These are primarily local and regional brands. It will not be a national. Player role in that stuff. Not the unbranded ones, right? No. Unbranded also. Unbranded is what you cannot measure, but the data you get is for the local and regional place. You see their presence, they're discounting much higher than what it used to be earlier. Coming to other steps, I know it's a very small part of. The overall business, only 10% of total business. Which states specifically are MO at FAST and business growth? What is the growth driven by primarily? Sorry, can you please repeat the question for the other states? Part of the business. It's a very small, small business right now. What states specifically are growing within all the other states? In fact, when you see the kind of growth we've delivered in other states, it's a game of all states doing well. Yes, to your question, it's like West Bengal, like Maharashtra, Gujarat. These states have done very, very well. Understand this is primarily because of increased direct outlet coverage, right? Is there something in the other states, our strategies that we are riding on modern trade, we are riding on E Com, that's what it is. We are riding on BP make super stockage distributors and they drive this distribution there. I mean, very broad question. There is a lot. Of buzz around obesity drugs in India as well. These are very pricey drugs right now. Once these are made accidental to the mass population, snacking companies would have any long-term risk in terms of trends maybe over the next five to six years. We will take it as it comes. For now, if you look at as we export to several countries and countries like the U.S. where these laws or the statutory requirements are even more stringent and we abide by all of them, we are actually ahead of times. If it comes, it will be true for us also. We live up to whatever is expected. In that case. Thank you, sir. Thank you. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. We'll take this as the last question for today. I would now like to hand the conference over to the Management for closing comments. Thanks, Dajal. Thank you, friends, for taking time out. Hopefully, we answered the questions to your expectation. Just in case you feel any of the questions was not well explained or does not bring in the clarification you were looking for, please reach out to us. We'll be glad to take the questions separately as well. Thank you once again. Bye. Thank you on behalf of Bikaji Foods International Ltd. That concludes this conference. Thank you all for joining us. You may now disconnect your lines.