Ladies and gentlemen, good day and welcome to Tata Consumer Q1 FY26 earnings conference call. 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 the conference call, please signal an operator by pressing star then zero on your touchstone phone. Please note that this conference is being recorded. I now hand the conference over to Mr. Manoj Menon from ICICI Securities. Thank you, and over to you, sir.
Hi everyone. Representing ICICI Securities, as always, it's our absolute pleasure to host the management of Tata Consumer for another sales conference call. Without much ado, passing the baton to Nidhi Verma from the company for the intro of the management and further proceedings. Over to Nidhi, please.
Thank you, Manoj, for hosting us, and welcome everyone. I hope that you have gone through the investor presentation and other materials that we have uploaded. As usual, how we will run today's call is we will walk you through some of the key highlights of the quarter, and then we will open the floor for Q&A. I'm joined by Mr. Sunil D’Souza, Managing Director and CEO, Mr. Ashish Goenka, Group CFO, and Mr. Ajit Krishnakumar, Executive Director and COO, and my colleague Kaiwan from the investor relations team. I want to draw your attention to the disclaimer statement that is up on your screen right now. With that, I'll hand it over to Sunil.
Yeah, thanks, Nidhi. In summary, we delivered a double-digit growth, 10%. The India-branded business, and if you had noticed from the last quarter, we had started publishing our UVG, it was close to 7% at 6.8. The core India businesses, both tea and salt, grew double-digit in value, and they also grew in volume. The growth businesses grew 7% on an aggregate basis. This was below par in our parlance. It was primarily driven by unfavorable weather impacting the RTD business. The monsoon came early. Despite that, we recorded positive volume growth. Sampann, obviously, continued its strong momentum. We have always said it will be close to 30%. It came in at 27 in quarter one.
Capital Foods and Organic India, we were impacted by some transitory issues, which include some capacity constraints, some right-sizing of inventories, and supply chain hiccups in the export, both as well as imported ingredients pieces. The focus now remains to continue to accelerate growth through innovation and expanding distribution here. International business is on a strong wicket and continued its momentum with a 5% constant currency growth. This time, the U.S. has come to the party. Non-branded business was quick to adapt. Coffee prices are in at least a short-term declining phase, and we need to be agile about figuring out sourcing and managing inventory. I think we did that quite well. Consolidated EBITDA, primarily, I would say two-thirds of this EBITDA decline is accounted for by tea cost, and this declined by 8%. The other is primarily because of coffee price corrections in the non-branded segment.
Overall, EBITDA margin was down by 250 basis points. As I said, 160 basis points was accounted by tea cost and the balance mostly with the coffee price. We continue to strengthen omnichannel capabilities. We are rolling out our food services and pharmacy, and these are demonstrating robust growth, albeit on a small base. I talked about coffee prices. Tea prices, however, currently remain favorable. We remain cautiously optimistic. In terms of performance, India beverages was up by 8. India Foods was up by 14. International up 9. In constant currency, 5. Non-branded was up 7. Consolidated, we were up by 10%. Revenue 10, INR 4,779 crore. EBITDA negative 8, which is negative 250 basis points. INR 465 crore of PBT, which is up 10%. Group net profit is up to 6.9%, which is grown by 10%. After exceptionals, total net before exceptionals is up 10%.
Total net profit all in is up by 15%, which translates to a 12% EPS growth year on year. We have got roughly INR 400 crore of cash on our balance sheet. Just to recap, at this time last year, we were negative since we had not done our rights issue. Strategic priorities remain the same. We maintained our A&P to sales in the 7% range, albeit in the short to medium term, we would like to go closer to a %7.5-8. Just as a perspective, Nielsen keeps on changing the goal post. They have rejigged their panel, which they used to do once in three years. This time, they have rejigged it in a year's time. Therefore, again, there is a new goal post on the share front. Apart from that, we have had several new launches. We've launched green tea with L-carnitine. L-carnitine is proven to burn fat.
We've brought in Sachin Tendulkar to endorse Organic India to build brand credentials and authenticity. We've also pumped up our communication on Tata Salt. Last year, we did the Deshka Namak campaign version 1.0. This is now 2.0, going retro. Even in RTD, we have started moving up the value chain, and the RTD coffee has got off to a very strong start. We're building multi-channel capabilities. ` Modern Trade grew 21%. Food services, which was the muscle that we're building, we've got now that we're in business for some time, we're now getting the tenders through and successful activation across several key large accounts and premium hotel chains. The pharmacy rollout is going very well. We have now expanded to the 40 cities. Here, there's a very strange equation.
The percentage of DSRs on the streets is equal to the percentage achievement against plan, which means it's only a question of putting feet on the street, and we're getting traction on top line. Just that feet on the street is taking a little bit more time. Vending is the other piece which we have gone aggressive behind. We've now got a 5% share in the bean-to-cup market with 5,000 machines. We had guided for 30% of our business coming out of the growth businesses, which will grow at 30. In terms of percentage, it's still at 28. We're still not there. It's not a satisfactory result on the growth number, which is coming at 7. As I mentioned, it's primarily due to a little bit of transitory issues, primarily on Capital Foods and Organic India, more Capital Foods, I would say.
RTD, while volume growth has come through, could have been better. Of course, we've re-indexed price, and therefore, value growth has lagged. We've done several launches across all our businesses this quarter. We've significantly improved our sustainability standing, and this has been steady progress. If you look at the CRISIL ratings, 57, 58, 61, we've moved the needle significantly. We are now in the strong territory. In terms of macros, tea prices right now, as of the latest auction, are about 13-15% below last year's same time, and we do expect it to trend lower as we go into the full season. Coffee, while it is trending downwards, there's not a uniform trend. There's still a bit of volatility there, and that is something which we've got to manage. In terms of business performance, packaged beverages, as I had mentioned, volume is up 1. Net revenue is up 12.
Growth was initially about six months back. It was the bottom of the portfolio, growing faster than the top. Now, more or less, with pricing having settled, growth was broad-based across categories. I would especially want to highlight coffee. Still, while we are a relatively smaller share player, we had had a 33% growth in volumes and 67% value. In terms of foods, we had a 6% volume growth, 14% revenue growth. Salt grew 13% with 5% volume. Actually, we've achieved our highest-ever quarterly tonnage. Value-added salts continued their strong momentum up 31. Sampann has grown 27%. Most importantly here, the recent launches in Sampann of dry fruits and cold-pressed oil continue to build on the growth momentum. Right now, we're tracking ARR of about INR 200 crores. On the RTD piece, we had a 3% volume growth. Net revenue delivered was INR 271. Revenue, however, was minus INR 13.
This is driven by the re-indexing of the price to retail that we did in Q2 of last year, end of Q1, early Q2 of last year. Now that is behind us. Going forward, volume growth will translate into additional value growth as well. Apart from this, we've launched eight new products during the quarter, all of them in the value-added range. Tata Copper Plus continued to show strong growth despite the reduced season. We had 11% growth in Tata Copper Plus. Capital Foods and Organic India, total of about INR 260 crores between the two of them. Combined margin was at 50%. This is what we had guided for. Most importantly, Organic India's e-commerce revenue, which the e-commerce channel probably has responded best on Organic India, has grown 3.5x year on year. I did mention the fact that we've partnered with Sachin Tendulkar.
Using the integrity to build the brand's emphasis on quality and trust. Non-branded business, slightly soft quarter as coffee prices came down. Single-digit growth both on solubles and overall revenue. Plantations delivered 11% growth. As coffee prices moderated. Profitability for the business was impacted due to the drop in the overall prices for coffee globally. Starbucks, the good news was we're back to same-store sales growth. We grew in April and June. May, albeit was a decline, and that's primarily because we had about 10 days of impact because of geopolitical tensions, especially in North and Northwestern India, driven by Operation Sindhur, reduced store timing, shutdown of stores in some places. We feel pretty confident about the uptick starting on both traffic, which we call ADT, as well as same-store sales growth. We tempered store opening for the quarter.
We've added only six new stores for the quarter, focusing on the footprint growth across both metros as well as smaller cities. International, U.K. was negative 4. Just to. I mean, point out, we were cycling a very strong quarter last year where competition had a misstep in the quarter there. But share continues to be on a strong wicket, close to a 20 share. Apart from that, on fruit and herbal, we have close to a double-digit share, which we are continuing to build on. The US came to the party very strongly. Coffee growth of 20%, market share 4. And overall market share growth in the US after a few quarters. Canada was a bit of a soft performance this quarter, primarily to do with a shifting of promotion timings in one of the big retailers, namely Costco in Canada.
This will come back over the next few quarters. I hand over to Ashish for the financials.
Yeah, thanks, Sunil. As Sunil said, I think overall we had a 10% growth at a consolidated level. EBIT was an 8% decline, largely on account of the impact of tea cost and some impact of the contraction that we have seen in coffee. Overall, EBITDA down minus 8% and PAT up 10% as we have logged off the interest cost from our base now, given that we have repaid the bridge loan after the rights issue. So that's flowing into the PAT now. And there were no exceptional items this quarter. Therefore, reported group net profit was 15%. Nothing much to cover on the segment. I think Sunil has really talked about and covered all the various aspect parts of the business. So we can move to the Q&A now. 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 then one on the touchstone phone. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star then 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. Again, to register for a question, please press star then one. Our first question comes from the line of Jay Doshi from Kotak. Please go ahead.
Yeah, hi. Thanks for the opportunity. I've got two questions. The first one is a slightly longer one on tea. So could you please explain to us the commodity price trends over the past six months and the outlook for the year? I know you touched upon this in the presentation.
How has the end product prices been in the last three, four months and competitive activity? And when you factor all of these three moving parts, are you still sort of confident that tea margins could normalize to what you had called out a couple of quarters back, that tea impacted margins by about 300 basis points at a consolidated level? So do you still expect somewhere between 200 to 300 basis point improvement in consolidated margins as once commodity prices come into the P&L starting three Q? That's the first question. The second is a small one. See, non-branded business margins have in a quarter corrected from 22% to 12%. I mean, the short term in a falling coffee prices can actually, it dropped to the other extreme just the way it went from 13, 14 to 20 plus.
In a falling coffee prices, do you actually get adversely impacted by inventory losses, and can it go to low single digit, or will it stabilize at these levels?
Thank you. Jay, let me answer the second question first and Ashish, chip in. The issue with falling coffee prices is your trailing inventory, right? That is the whole catch because you're sitting with inventory and selling it at a lower price. It will stabilize at a point in time. I would dare say we are probably close to the bottom on the margins front. Ashish?
Yeah. Just to add to what Sunil said, I think, Jay, we are fairly well hedged, of course. We have taken a small charge this quarter on the mark-to-market. I think probably we'll have to see one more quarter. Of course, it largely depends on where the coffee prices finally settle.
If they are roundabout where they are currently, I think we'll see probably one more quarter of pain. Then we should get back to the historical margins that we had in this business.
Yeah. Jay, to answer your question on tea. Broadly, I would say we've had about a 10 percentage point impact of tea prices, tea cost. We've been able to translate roughly 70% of the price increases of tea into pricing for the consumer. So 30% is still out there, and that has impacted our margins by about 10 percentage points. Broadly, tea should operate in a margin range of about 34-36, 37% gross margin. We are about 10 percentage points below that. Two things will happen from here on. A is, like I said, 70% of the pricing we've already taken.
So therefore, as tea prices come down and the latest auction for which data is available, tea prices were down 13% versus the same period last year. Last year, overall, the rise was about 30%. Like I said, 13 has already come off, so that's 17 left there. We do think it will come down to a probably, there's a mid to high single-digit remainder which will remain. Otherwise, we do expect this to come off, and therefore, tea margins to expand. Also, there is one more phenomenon which will happen as we go forward. If the tea prices come off rapidly, the locals will have access to lower tea prices. Therefore, as we see market prices moving, we will, like I said, 34-36, 37 is a margin which I'm comfortable with or we are comfortable with. I don't think this category, you can go beyond this.
Therefore, if prices come down more dramatically, we will have to give up something in terms of consumer price as well. Overall, I would say by Q3, you should see margins operating in this range.
Thank you. Can you give some color on competitive activity? Has the market leader, what is the extent of price reductions that they have already taken, and have you responded to it? At a portfolio level, have you taken any price reductions in the last three, six months, three months?
I would say in the last three months in specific blends, in specific geographies. Let me put it this way, Jay, we have seen both sides moving. We have seen price increases and price declines. Like I said, I do not think we are going to win or I do not think any player is going to win the battle of market share by pricing.
Therefore, if someone moves up, the other person moves up or down, and it is vice versa. From that perspective, I do not think there is a competitive advantage. As I said, overall, I do see margins first coming back and then competitive movement starting to happen.
Understood. Thank you so much. I will get back into the queue.
Thank you. The next question comes from the line of Abneesh from Nuama. Please go ahead.
Yeah, thanks. I have a few follow-up questions on the tea only. How relevant is the current spot prices? Because the crop will come in the next maybe two months. Currently, Northeast India has a deficit in rain. Would you see that as a risk? Because current spot, the real buying is not happening, right? How relevant is the current prices? Would you see Northeast deficit in rains as a risk?
Because it is already in deficit, and the initial forecast which came speaks of this deficit. If you could discuss that. Abneesh, actually speaking, if you look at the crop itself, I think we are already ahead on North India compared to last year, right? If I am not mistaken, May itself was close to about 25-30% higher than the year before, and it was equal to 2023. June, the tea board has still not published the numbers, but June last year was fairly decent. It was July which ran into issues with the drought. We do expect this year to be a normal, even the IMD has forecast a normal rainfall season. If that happens, there is no reason for us not to go back to the cropping levels of 2023, and therefore the pricing to start unwinding.
As I said, my expectation is out of the 30, you will have some remanent single digit left. The balance will unwind. Just as a perspective, buying has already started. I would say sometime mid-June onwards, everyone started to build up positions. Yes, the peak is yet to come. It's probably 30 days away in the peak buying, this thing. But there's no reason for us at this point of time to speculate saying that we are not going back to cropping level of 2023 and therefore price corrections.
Sure. My second question is you have done quite well in dry fruits. And in pulses, definitely you had a USP of, say, low contamination, more fiber, unpolished. In dry fruits, what exactly is working? Is it more of the unbranded opportunity getting branded? Is that the opportunity?
And in terms of competition, a lot of startup companies are there, a lot of private labels of the e-comm, Q-comm is also there. Long term, how do you see the business case here? In pulses, I do understand there's absolutely no Pan-India large branded player, and definitely you can command a premium. In dry fruits, if you can say the same. Long-term right to win.
So Abneesh, I'll just reiterate, right? Any of the categories that we're getting in, it is, let me say, it's not, I mean, you just on the spur of the moment decide. This was all drawn up as a roadmap way back when we started in 2020 when we had scanned the entire horizon. And we had evaluated categories on multiple axes, right, including growth, branded to unbranded, margin, competition. If it was fragmented, there's a problem. If it's concentrated, it's a problem.
Ability to differentiate, etc. And most importantly, we had evaluated lack of trust. In dry fruits, it's one of the categories which is the largest lack of trust from a consumer perspective because it's very, very difficult for the consumer to judge whether it's 150, 200, or 250. I mean, this is all the retailer telling them that this is the price, right? And that is why it's got off to a phenomenal start. E-comm is primarily the big driver for us, and that is where most of the top line is coming from. Once we've stabilized there, that is when we've started to go down to general trade. It's more general trade and less modern trade because the modern trade players, like you rightly mentioned, they've got their own private label, etc.
Now, I would also want to reiterate that plain dry fruits, which is what we have launched, is good top line, but relatively moderate margin. The margin in dry fruits is made once you roast, salt, flavor, etc. And you will soon start seeing us expand into that. Now that we've figured out the supply chain for dry fruits, because that is another tough nut to crack, because there is a seasonality on sourcing, and you've got to time it right, right origin country, all these kind of places. Now that we've figured it, now you'll see us expanding into the value added and driving up margins in this category.
Sure. Last quick question. Essentially on Narishco, how do you see the coming three quarters? Q1, all summer categories have been impacted, so completely understand that.
If you can discuss both sales and volume, because volume growth is back, but sales growth, the commission has been increased, so if you can discuss on sales. On Capital Foods, now this is the sixth quarter we are now entering post-acquisition. Where is the challenge? In terms of what else is needed for Capital Foods, the kind of growth. This should grow, but that's not happening. What are the issues in terms of that?
In terms of Narishco, Abneesh, actually speaking, as I had mentioned, we took the pricing corrections last year. Last second half of June, early July. That's why you'll see us cycling this thing. Effectively, to give you this thing, Tata Gluco Plus would be about, at that point of time, about 50% of my portfolio, and we had moved the price to retail from roughly INR 820 to INR 650, right?
We have roughly doubled the retailer margin, and that is what has driven down value. So 3% volume growth, negative 13% value. That is now behind us because now Q2 onwards, I'm cycling the INR 650 pricing. Therefore, as I said, my volume growth will now translate into value growth as well. That's number one. Number two, remember we've driven 3% volume growth despite missing out roughly, I would say, 10 out of 90 days of peak season. Roughly about 10% growth has disappeared from there. Plus, all my new launches have got off to a good start, whether it is alkaline water, it is kombucha tea, it has got. We are expanding ready-to-drink coffee, alkaline water. There's no reason for me to say that we will not get back to the 30% top line growth. That too, I would say Q2, latest Q3.
Q2, definitely second half of Q2, it should exceed 30%. Capital Foods, to your question, as I mentioned, there was a bunch of issues, and we termed it as transitory because more or less we figured out how to tackle it. Exports, we had shipping issues, especially with the geopolitical issues around the Middle East, etc. Apart from that, we had several imported ingredients, right? You know the China story, and therefore we had to rejig our recipes in certain categories. In certain places, we had to right-size inventories for certain categories. Then, of course, things like noodles. Let me say, my team did not figure out the capacity constraints in the right manner, which we unlocked only towards the second half of the quarter. Going forward now, I think we should be in a good place.
What are the capacity constraints on noodles?
Noodles, for example, I mean, we didn't have the, as soon as we said we are going to expand into noodles, we didn't have a INR 10 pack sold as a INR 10 pack. We did not have a ₹15 pack sold as a ₹15 pack, right? We were selling all of them. We were selling four packs put together at INR 80, whereas the largest market leader was selling the same thing at INR 60, right? Sorry, it is four packs at INR 80, and market leader was four packs at INR 60. It was sold as a four pack, not as a single pack. We did two things. One is we dropped our price from INR 80 to INR 60 to match the largest competitor. We have launched a INR 15 pack, which is 60 grams, as well as we have launched a INR 10 pack, right?
The team had underestimated the demand, and we quickly ran short of product. It took us some time to activate the three P's for us to expand.
Okay. Thanks. That is all from my side.
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Mihir Shah from Nomura. Please go ahead.
Hi, sir. Thank you for the opportunity. Firstly, again, on the Narishko side of the business. The 16% price cut that we are seeing, should one expect this price cut to continue for the remaining part of the three quarters? Will it have an impact, or are you expecting volume growth of more than 20% plus to make up for that price cut that we are seeing?
Mihir, very simply put, I cannot predict how long competition will hold out. As long as competition holds out at this price, I am holding out. I will, therefore, drive volume to make up for this gap. As I said, we do expect seeing for the next three quarters, we will grow upwards of 30%.
Okay. In the Narishko business or the entire growth?
In the Narishko business and the overall growth businesses also.
Understood. Fair point. Thank you, sir, for that one. Secondly, again, coming back to Capital Foods and Organic India, I understand that there is a one-off this quarter, but if you see the past run rates, they have not moved much. What is the normal growth rate that one should consider in this business? Should one expect things to stabilize from Q2? Is that what I understand correctly?
Yes, you should expect things to stabilize from Q2. In fact, already we are seeing the stabilization happening in July. That is number one.
Number two, Capital Foods and Organic India, as we said, are part of the growth portfolio for us, where we have guided for 30% of the portfolio growing at 30%. In broad terms, you should expect a year-on-year growth of about 30%.
Got it. Lastly, a quick keepy question on the other expenses. Is there any one-off that is sitting out there? It seems to have declined. If you have stepped up on ad spends and signed up such and etc., one would have expected those line items to go up. How should one think about ad spends going forward and on the other expenses line item? And that's all from my side. Thank you.
Thanks, Mihir. I'll take that. I think you're comparing it with last year. In the base, we had a one-off charge on account of some of the edge reversals that we had done.
Having said that, we are also keeping a very tight control on our overall cost. However, we will not compromise on the A&P spend. We will continue to keep it at, in fact, as Sunil said, from the current levels of 6.8, 6.9, we want to step it up to about 7.5. We will want to continue to keep a tight leash on the rest of the cost.
Understood, Ashish. This run rate of INR 925 crore or close that we are seeing on other expenses should continue going forward as well, or it will materially go up to like INR 950 crore plus?
It should not go materially. I mean, there'll be some movement, but not materially. As we step up our A&P spend, you could expect it to go up slightly, but I don't think we'll have a material change in this line.
Got it. Thank you very much. Wishing you all the best.
Thank you.
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Arnab Mitra from Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.
Yeah, hi. My first question is actually again on the tea business. See, in the last couple of years, one year was a deflation year, one was an inflation year. In both the years, the branded industry did not do very well in terms of volumes. Anything that you think has to be fundamentally changed here to get back the growth? Because now you're getting into a deflation year again where obviously the competitive strength of the unorganized or the regional players becomes a little higher. Do you worry about the volume growth not coming back to some reasonable level of mid-single digit that you have historically spoken about?
In that context, do you still feel comfortable taking the margins back to that 34-35% levels?
Arnab, here's the thing, right? I would say mid to longer term, we have said mid-single digit volume plus a couple of basis points to ramp up and go to a slightly higher number on the total value. Just to put it in perspective, if I dial back. My December quarter was 10% growth, which was 7 volume, 3 value. My March quarter was 9%, which was 2 volume and 7 value. Right now, we're at 12, which is 1 volume and 11 value, right? This volume value, I think you will keep on seeing the whole thing move. I do think going forward now, you'll see the value coming down and the volume going up. I do think.
As A prices stabilize and more importantly, as tea costs go down and there is reindexing, you should start seeing volume start to pick up towards the mid-single digit. Overall, I would not change my guidance of overall, I would say between a 7-8% total value growth. That's number one. Number two, to your question of market share swinging on the upside or downside, I think the most, this thing that we had seen was during COVID. You have to remember that was driven by two, three pieces. A was the fact that prices had run up very quickly, and therefore, if I'm not mistaken, it was 60-70% increase in double-quick time. That had put pressure on working capital for the smaller players, and therefore an issue on supply chain.
B, because of COVID, their ability to move product from SIM down to the different markets, Western India, South, wherever they were operating, that was a challenge, and therefore there were supply chain gaps. Right now, the prices moving up or down are moving up or down very gradually. I don't expect that market shares will change dramatically because of prices moving up or down. They will change if we don't reindex our prices very quickly, especially when it goes down, and that is what I talked about. I think margins will come back to normal. As I said, between a 34-37 is a normative operating margin for us. This is my gross margin is more like marginal contribution because it includes all variable freight, etc.
Once it comes into that level, then we will have to give up pricing because I don't think we can go beyond this without losing share, which I don't want to do.
Okay. Understood. Thanks for that elaborate answer. Sunil, the second question was again on Capital Foods. My question was, you spoke about the transitory issues. Did this lead to an offtake loss also, or this was basically supply chain primary loss and consumer offtake was okay? In that context, therefore, do you think that you can recover part of what you didn't sell this quarter because the consumer was still buying, or there was actually a loss of consumer sales in this quarter?
The second part of that question is, I think you partly answered it, but all the issues you think are largely over at the end of 1Q, and we should be normal in the 2Q on the supply chain?
A, I would think most of the issues are over. We've still got to crack the supply chain for the cup noodles, for example, right? Just to give you a perspective, there are two ways of doing cup noodles. Put the same pack in a cup and, I mean, put a cover on it, which is not the way noodles should be served. The cake has to be cut in a particular manner, put in it, and then seasoning applied, and therefore the right taste comes through. We're right now piloting the line. That's probably the last piece to be tied up there. That's number one.
Number two, there was marginal offtake impact because noodles, for example, we couldn't supply enough, and therefore, I would say opportunity loss. My secondary grew by about 22-23%. From that perspective, there was no consumer loss per se. That's why we remain confident of coming back to the 30%+ growth levels that we've talked about.
Okay. Thanks. Thanks. That's very clear. Thanks so much, Sunil. All the best.
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Tejas Shah from Aventus Park. Please go ahead.
Hi, Sunil. Thanks for the opportunity. Sunil, just expanding on that Capital Foods and Organic India problem, if I have to call it that. In most of such acquisitions, one of the key arguments is usually distribution synergy, given they are usually under-indexed versus our widespread distribution.
I was just wondering, I can understand some of the minor issues here and there, but does the distribution also face a challenge and is not as numeric as we think that it will be easier to just plug and play immediately?
No, so Tejas, very simply, I think distribution was a slam dunk. There was absolutely no issue. We've got the distribution expansion in the last one year that we expected. In fact, we probably exceeded it a bit. I think the bigger issue is solving for these smaller hiccups, if I may. Just as a perspective, Organic India as well, my secondary sales were 32%. Capital, my secondary sales were 22%. From that perspective, from a consumer offtake, secondaries, there is no issue. It is just minor pieces that we've got to stitch together.
Organic India, just as a perspective, the other piece is, I think I said it in a few of these things, the term I would use is we figured out what the Germans felt when they reached Stalingrad and figured the supply chain was missing, right? Because the theory was that we'll be able to fire up Amazon, which is about 40% of the category in the US. We did a few pilots last July and from September, October fired it up sincerely. In fact, for the last three months, they've been firing at about 51% growth. The catch is the lead times from there, I mean, coming back to RAT, going to the Barabanki factory, packing it, sending it up there, that is something which I think was a bit of a learning for us on Organic India. Most of these, like I said, issues behind us.
I don't see any reason why we can't deliver the 30% growth that we've talked about Q2 onwards.
Very assuring. Second and last, you have always stressed aspiration for EBITDA growth higher than revenue growth, and for the commodity cycle that we are in, we have not been able to do it. So 16% EBITDA margin that we are potentially indicating by Q2, Q3 this year, where do we stand on that guidance now?
I do think by Q3, we should definitely be able to get to it. Q2 would be a bridge between where we are to that. We will be closer to that number than the Q1 number. That is because, as we had mentioned, by the time the tea comes into my supply chain, it is roughly about anywhere from 30-45 days.
While the auction prices have started dipping about, I would say, about three, four weeks back, now middle of Q2 is when that low-priced inventory starts coming in and therefore changing the EBITDA margins. We should be in a good place, definitely by Q3, but we will be on our way by Q2.
In this guidance, you are also keeping room for competitive intensity if it picks up?
Competitive intensity, as I said, on tea, I do not think anyone is going to win the market share battle by pricing. I would be highly surprised if that were to happen. I would put a very low probability on it. On ready-to-drink beverages, it has already happened, right? I have already reindexed my pricing per se, and overall, ready-to-drink beverages is what? Hardly about, I would say, 5% of my portfolio. Not a material impact on my EBITDA margin.
My EBITDA margin, everything would be dependent on tea and coffee prices.
Clear. That is all from my side. Thanks.
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Vivek M from Jefferies. Please go ahead.
Hi, good evening, Sunil and team. A couple of questions. First is on, Sunil, you mentioned about some change in the Nielsen panel on the market share. Can you just briefly highlight what exactly is the change? Historically, you have mentioned that probably modern-trade e-commerce is under indexed. Can you just elaborate briefly as much as you can?
Vivek, normally, see, Nielsen is a panel, and that panel is supposed to mirror exactly the consumer offtake and, I would say, different channels per se. Now, they rejig their general trade panel in line with what they are seeing on offtakes by geography, PIN code, etc., size of outlet, etc.
It used to happen once every three years. This time, they have reindexed it within a year. They reindexed it last year, and they have again reindexed it this year. That is number one. Number two, this does not include e-commerce at all, right? They do publish e-commerce separately, but I believe since all the platforms do not share the data, and even the platforms which do share the data, the marketplaces give out only data for products which they sell directly and not for other players selling on. Therefore, it's not fully accurate. Number two. Number three, in modern trade, the whole paradigm is shifting, and I believe one of the big players doesn't share data. Nielsen is second-guessing that number as well. On GT, they've rejected the panel within one year. E-commerce, while they have the data, I mean, they say they're not very confident about it.
In modern trade, I know for a fact that one of the big players doesn't share data. Nielsen, I would say I look more for broad execution metrics and not absolute market share. I would be very, very intrigued on specific numbers from other players more than I would look at Nielsen. Interesting. I mean, I don't want to put you on spot, but basically, you are saying 40-80 basis point margin, sorry, market share decline is something that probably your views doesn't reflect the true picture. Vivek, let me say, we have other players declaring volume declines and showing market share gains over the past six-nine months.
Therefore, while I publish this number just because we have an external number and we've been publishing it, I have maintained, I think a year back, I was printed out in one of the big financial papers saying Tata CEO doesn't believe Nielsen, right? I do take these numbers. We do take directional inputs, but I wouldn't take it as gospel.
Got it. Got it. Second, a lot has been asked on both Capital Foods and Organic India. If you have to think about build versus buy, what is your view incrementally with the I know you never do M&As for. Sorry, operator, are you still there?
Yes, sir. Next question is from.
Moderator, are you there?
Hello. Can you hear me?
Yeah, we can hear you.
Next question is from.
Yeah. My question is for the Capital Foods and Tata Sampann.
How is the pay table in our distribution channel for these products?
Sorry. I'm hearing an echo. Suman Jha, effectively, we have grown distribution significantly in Capital Foods. When we had taken them over, it was about 300,000 outlets, if I'm not mistaken. We have more than doubled that number as we have gone in. That is not an issue. Like I said, the reason for the throughput not coming through on Capital Foods is various other transitory issues. Distribution execution, both in Capital Foods and Organic India, I mean, has been the easiest to deliver.
what we are expecting. The post-acquisition of Capital Foods, the durability of that product and synergy benefit, what existing channel we have in urban and also in some other cities, hope that is going to exceed the growth of Capital Foods. That is not happening.
No, so many other things.
Like I said, growth has happened on the secondary level. We have delivered a 22% growth on Capital Foods, right? The number which you are seeing is our reporting, which is the primary number. So distributors selling to outlets and delivering the number, 22% has got delivered. Organic India, 32% has got delivered. That is not the issue. It is the various other hiccups which we've got to solve for.
Thank you so much.
I think, Vivek, you're back on the call.
Moderator, can we have Vivek back if he's on?
Yes. Next question is from the line of Vivek from Jefferies. Please go ahead.
`Sorry, team. Am I audible now?
Yeah, yeah, Vivek.
Okay. Apologies. I don't know what went wrong. What I was asking you was on the Capital Foods and Organic India, a lot has been asked and you have answered.
Build versus buy, do you think incrementally, probably you will need a greater amount of thinking even if the target is attractive enough, or do you think these are really transitory issues? Do not change your thought process on the M&A side.
Vivek, I wouldn't change my thought process on the M&A side at all. Build versus buy, I don't think we would ever be able to build the supply chain which Organic India has with the credibility with the farmers and the authentic product passing through the 600-plus tests that it passes through. Incidentally, at that point of time, we had benchmarked versus a lot of other organic things, and I would probably put a question mark on most of the products which are labeled organic out there, right? That's number one. With Capital Foods, I would say there is no other brand which owns the desi Chinese space.
I mean, I'm sure you're aware, there's actually no Chinese product called Shezwan Chutney, right? These creative products which have got built and categories which have got created, we would be struggling to do that. I think the game is now taking that equity of Capital Foods or the back end of Organic India and delivering it. Just to give you an example, right? One of the hypotheses when we had got in was that these guys are not distributed very well in the US. Amazon is a big channel, 40% of throughput through Amazon. Just by activating it, we will get throughput. We did get 51% growth in the last few months. It's just that we didn't have the supply chain, right? Very, very simple pieces. Hindsight, it looks very simple pieces, but it's just taken us a bit of time to stitch up.
The pharma channel, for example, one of the hypotheses in Organic India was that the pharma channel is profitable and delivers growth. We proved it in the pilot. When we started rolling out, getting the DSRs, the salespeople, is taking a little bit of time. Let me put it this way. The percentage of DSRs on the streets is actually equal to my percentage achievement versus plan. So it's all a race of how quickly can I find that person, train him, and put him on the street. It's only a matter of time. I don't think the thesis will shift.
Got it. Got it. Very interesting. And last thing, apologies if it's a naive question, but with all this uncertainty around tariffs and all of that, does any piece of your business, whether U.S.
directly from a supply chain or whatever, whatever, perspective get impacted one way or the other depending on the tariff outcome, or it doesn't have a major impact on your business?
So Vivek, let me put it this way. I mean, there are basically three businesses which we operate in the U.S. which are dependent on the India piece, right? Sorry, there are three businesses. Effectively, number one is the coffee business in the U.S. Now, coffee, whatever happens on tariffs with Brazil, Indonesia, Vietnam, will happen for everyone. Therefore, it's a category issue. It's not a competitive issue. I mean, 50% tariffs from Brazil, you can imagine what's going to happen to coffee prices if it goes through. Now, it's your guess against mine whether it will go through, right? But competitively will not be disadvantaged in coffee. The second piece is all the organic stuff.
40% of Organic India turnover is in the U.S. Those products are going out of India. Most of the Ashwagandhas, Trifalas, this thing, everything goes out of India. So therefore, again, competitively, I don't think there will be a disadvantage. The third piece is all the ethnic exports, all the other Sampann, Tata Salt, Tata Tea, etc., which goes in. Again, competitively, whatever happens on tariffs from India will happen. I don't see a there might be category issues in the U.S. If, for example, Brazilian coffee is taxed at 50%, I mean, there is going to be a ruckus there, right? We are already sitting at the verge of, at the Lavazza CEO put in, demand destruction in the U.S. I'm not sure this 50% goes through. If it does, it will impact categories. Competitively, I won't be impacted.
Here's the thing, Vivek, I don't spend my time trying to second-guess what is going to happen, right? Because it's moved from, what, 26% down to 10%. Then tomorrow it might go to 50. I will wait for it to happen and then figure out. We've got a playbook of various different options, but that's it. It's a playbook for now. We'll action it as and when we see something landing.
Sure, Sunil. The idea of only asking you this question was just the framework. Thank you so much for explaining this in detail and wish you all the best.
Moderator, we just quickly go to the webcast once to see if there are any pending questions. I think there are some questions. Sunil from Lathika at JPMorgan with my from Citi and Aditya Gupta. I think we've already covered those.
Given the time, I think we'll just conclude the call. If you have any further pending questions, please feel free to get in touch with us.
Yeah?
Thank you very much. I would like to give any closing comments.
Yeah, just want to thank all of you for attending the call. If you do have any remaining questions, please get in touch. Yeah, thank you.
Thank you very much.