Note: This is a preliminary transcript and may contain inaccuracies. It will be updated with a final, fully-reviewed version soon.
Britannia Industries Limited (NSE: BRITANNIA) Q4 2026 Earnings Call dated May. 08, 2026
Corporate Participants:
Ayush Agarwal — Investor Relations
Rakshit Hargave — Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director
Vipin Kumar Kataria — Chief Commercial Officer
Analysts:
Miyosha — Analyst
Presentation:
Operator
Ladies and gentlemen, good day and welcome to The Britannia Industries Limited Q4FY26 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 this conference call, please signal an operator pressing star then zero on your touchstone phone. I now hand the conference over to Mr. Ayush Agarwal. Investor Relations, Britannia Industries Ltd.
Thank you. And over to Mr. Agarwal.
Ayush Agarwal — Investor Relations
Good morning everyone. This is Ayush from the investor relations team. I welcome you all to the Britannia earnings call to discuss the financial results of quarter four for financial year 2025 26. Joining us today on this earnings call is our Managing Director and CEO Mr. Raksha Thargave. Executive Director and CFO Mr. N. Venkatraman. Chief Commercial Officer, Sales and Replenishment, Mr. Vipin Kataria. Chief Marketing Officer, Mr. Puneet Das, Vice President Marketing, Mr. Siddharth Gupta and Vice President Corporate Finance, Mr.
Ramaborty Jayaraman. The analyst deck is uploaded on our website. Before I pass it on to Mr. Akshay Hargave, I would like to draw your attention to the Safe harbor statement in the presentation. Over to Mr. Hargave with remarks on the performance.
Rakshit Hargave — Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director
So good morning everybody. So you know we will now go through the deck which we have shared with you. And obviously this has the details for Q4. And now also because this is the end of the year, you will also see the perspective for the full year. So let me begin with the business overview. If you take a look at the performance scorecard for fourth quarter 2526. If you take a look at the revenue line, you will see that we had in the last quarter 4686 crores. On a 12 month basis this was a growth of 7.1%.
And on a two month rolling basis it adds up to 16.7%. If you take a look at the PAT line, quarter four by itself was 14.5% of revenue. The 12 month growth is 21% and the 24 month growth is 26%. If we go to the same scorecard, but Instead of only Q4, if we take a look at the full financial year 2526, you will see that for the year at a revenue level we clocked 18,858 crores which on a 12 month basis was a 7.5 growth over the previous year. And on a 2 year basis was a 14% growth. If you take a look at PAT, you will see that for the year at a PAT level we were 13.4% of revenue.
On a 12 month basis this was a 16.3% growth. And on a 24 month basis this was an 18.4% growth. We will quickly take you through the commodity price trend. So you will see that flower has been on a bit of a receding trend. So we know that the wheat output has been good. So Q4 saw a dip in the last one month. We see an upswing in the flour prices because of unseasonal rains, high heat and some quality issues in the arrivals. But still flour is a. We see it as a positive trend for us. If you take a look at refined palm oil, you see that in the last quarter the prices have gone up.
Obviously this has also got a correlation to fuel for us. We buy forward on palm oil. So we are actually quite well covered for another five months. Sugar more or less behaving like as it is. Cocoa prices are down, laminate prices, while you see that they have come down towards the end of Q4. But from March onwards laminate prices have actually gone up and they are still up in April. Again this is because of the war impact in the Middle east where granules prices have gone up. So we have to see how that comes out.
But yes, at the moment there is an inflation. Milk prices are behaving as they do behave during this period. They are on an up. Usually they start coming down during winter. We will have to see how does that move ahead because there is expectation of El Nino and higher warming. And how does that impact Milk will be interesting for us to see. I would want to spend some time on the West Asia conflict. So we have an international business where a significant portion of manufacturing for those markets happens in Oman, in Dubai.
Our international business revenue and profitability was impacted during the last quarter owing to vessel unavailability and slowdown in demand in those markets. We were unable to dispatch vessels as you know, because the Strait of Hormuz was locked. Also at the same time you know that there is significant increase in fuel costs and ocean freight rates. If we see the impact of the West Asia conflict in the Indian market. So when the war started we initially had concerns because there was an issue of LPG shortage, etc.
But we have been able to manage the situation well. So there has been no material disruption to production operations at our Indian manufacturing facilities on account of these fuel supply constraints. So we’ve been able to manage all manufacturing as it should be. We’ve Also made other measures. We are anyway already working on alternate fuels and options. So the agility of the Britannia team came to the fore and hence actually apart from the fuel cost inflation which cannot be helped, actual manufacturing has been quite steady.
We obviously will need to take some mitigation measures for this and we have initiated the mitigating measures so there will be calibrated price increases starting from this quarter. We are also optimizing our sourcing between India and international manufacturing facilities for key geographies to mitigate supply related challenges. Expected to be fully operational by mid May. So like you know, we have an export oriented unit in Mundra now. In the last few months because of tariffs we had moved all the manufacturing for North America to Oman.
But we have been able to move all that manufacturing gradually back to Mundra so that we will now be able to dispatch towards North America. Because if we were manufacturing in Oman we would not be able to do that. So that agility has helped us. Obviously it goes without saying that the cost optimization measures and efficiency initiatives which Britannia has done extremely well in the past, that continues and that has taken a new leaf because of the challenges in front of us in terms of inflation.
So the company is totally committed to continue on those CEP measures to be able to deliver what it promises. Let me focus on the strategic priorities as we had announced. So we continue to drive efficiencies in our sales and distribution supply chain channels. We have very efficient networks on these and we will keep driving them to higher levels. However, brand Experiences and its investments as you would see, will be much more stronger. I think investing more on brands and creating more experiential strategies is the way that we want to go and that is going to reflect in what you are going to see also innovation, adjacencies and future platforms.
There is intense work happening to be able to create portfolio also for the future. We are also like I said in the last call, realigning the way we work in creating a team for many Indias. So the agility of the teams, the startup culture, their ability to take quicker calls, customization for regional Indias is a very big project which has been kicked on and you will see the output of that coming in the next few quarters. And obviously doing all this in a sustainable manner is something that we have done and we will continue.
I would want to share something on our E Commerce business which is actually growing exponentially. So in the domestic business the salience of E Commerce has moved to 6% of overall sales in 2526 from 4% of overall sales in 2425. Now you have to take a look at this 6% number with a different lens. As you would imagine that for us nearly 60 to 65% of biscuits sell at the 5 rupee and 10 rupee price point which don’t really have any major salience in E commerce. So if you apply that filter you will actually realize that our E Commerce contribution is upwards of 12% which is the best in class.
Also, if we look at the categories where we are firing on E Commerce, while Biscuit continues to do well, the newer Adjacency categories are growing in E Commerce at a rate which is 2.7 times. Hence fueling the fastest growing channel through exclusive launches, premiumized offerings and customized D2C offerings will be the order of the day and our investments on E Commerce will grow even further. Vipin, do you want to add something to this?
Vipin Kumar Kataria — Chief Commercial Officer
Thanks Aksit. Hi Vipin. Kataria this side so QCOM has been a bright spot. We’ve been talking about E Commerce for the last few quarters and what we see is that we are building this momentum and acceleration for last few quarters. So just to share a few More points, almost 70% of our business today is coming from the quick commerce part of E commerce and how we see this is further moving up to 85% because as you know Amazon is scaling up their Quickcom model as well as Flipkart. Now the big upside of this is that there is a big change in the assortment while on the marketplace or e commerce platform we were very heavy on staples.
What’s happening because of this change in QCOM is that we are able to premiumize our assortment and we are able to sell much more indulgent categories and that is the impact which you see on the right hand side which is adjacency is growing almost 3x. So going forward what we are doing is we are collaborating with platforms, we are getting used to their playbook and therefore activating a lot of our brands through their playbook by close collaboration. So I think going forward the 6% you will see moving up as well as the assortment towards premium as well as impulse will keep growing.
Rakshit Hargave — Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director
Thank you Vipin. So let me continue with the next slide which talks about key brands and products on air. So you would notice that in the last quarter we have been on air with the variant of our 5050 brand which is Cheese Dipped. Also a variant of Marigold which is the Dood Marigold which was launched across select markets and also Good Day Butter. This was complemented along with multiple consumer engagement and brand activations which covered Tiger Crunch Treat which is our wafer brand. Also Crozant and Jim Jam and as you would know Crozant is a very exciting category doing very well for us.
If you take a look at the adjacency business, if you take a look at the cake fudget, this is really a Gen Z focused brand. We have promoted it significantly during Valentine’s and we can see that there is significant growth in that and it becomes an impulse kind of confectionery kind of approaches. So wafers continued growing healthy double digit cake and rusk high prevalence in E Commerce driving growth at about 1.4 times of biscuits. We have successfully scaled up our brownie also very well accepted by consumers.
Dairy business also double digit growth and fueled by Ghee which has done excellently for us in the last one year. Also our innovations have gained traction. So the cheese dipped, the 5050 cheese dipped and a variant of that, the caramel dipped which we launched which has been heavily advertised on TV also during the Indian Premier League has already become the second biggest, the second biggest player in the sandwich cracker segment in three months of its launch and continues to grow month on month.
Also we have what we call these are signature brands, Treat, Little Hearts and Jim Jam. They are actually outpacing the overall company growth by about 3x and as we see and we continue to see growth in the coming quarter also and obviously to leverage this the teams have innovation and variants planned to leverage this portfolio. Like we talked about winning in many Indias. What you see on the chart is depiction of our internal regions, how we classify and what we have done. We have made regional teams supported by marketing, supported by innovation, supported by research and development to really tackle these markets at a much more local level and we should be able to see the output of that as we continue during the course of the year on esg.
Building a sustainable and profitable business has always been at the core of Britannia. So let me share the progress of KPIs on this. Over last year so we’ve had 7% reduction in specific water consumption. We’ve had a 1% increase in women factory workforce and actually very happy to say that many of our factories are actually majority managed by women. The Britannia Nutrition foundation has had a 67% increase in the number of beneficiaries and this is a major cornerstone of our CSR program. Also a 14% increase in renewable electricity share in our own plants.
Also like we said, the cost efficiency programs that we have implemented in the company continue. So just to give you a scale of what we have been able to achieve in 2526 you will see that as compared to 201314 in about 12 years we have increased the discipline of CEP 10x as compared to 2021. You know it has actually doubled. So there is obviously a lot of focus and the focus areas comprises alternate fuels, large efficiencies on buying, working on renewable energy, wastage reduction, lot of optimization on logistics and a lot of work on packaging and re engineering.
And like we said we are also evaluating alternate energy sources as long term solutions to mitigate fuel supply led disruptions. So that as in India we become much more self sufficient to be able to manage if any shocks like these come in the future. If we take a look at the financial results and I will take you through that. So let’s take a look at the revenue trends. You will see that on a 12 month growth we clocked 7% in the quarter. The quarter before was 9, 4 and 10. On a 24 month basis it becomes 17, 17, 9, 14.
If you go backwards and you have the bar chart to show how we have progressed in absolute revenue over the last four years and you can see that it is an incline moving towards the northeast. Similarly if I take you through the consolidated results you will see that in Q4 we were at 4686 crores which was a growth of 7.1% over Q4 last year, operating profit of 768 which was a 6% growth, PBT of 785 which was a 4.4% growth and PAT of 678 which was a 21.1% growth. Obviously this 21.1% growth also comes as we have observed in the comments because of some income tax case closures.
Hence we have had to release them. If you take a look at profit from operations, if we go quarter by quarter wise for the year which has gone by, so you will see that we were at 16.4% in the current quarter, 18.3 before that, 18.3 before that and 14.9 in Q1. If you take a look at PBT we see that our PBT margin has more or less remained at a good constant line. We were 16.8% this quarter, 18.8 Q3, 18.6 Q2 and 15.5 Q1 and PAT at 14.5 versus 13.9, 13.8, 11.5 PAT. Obviously like we said, is also a function of the income tax case which has been included here.
If we take a look at the full year on a consolidated basis. So we clocked sales of 18,858 crores which was a growth of 7.5% over last year, operating profit of 3208 which was 11.6% growth over last year, PVT of 3289 which was a 12.4% growth and PAT of 2533 which was a 16.3% growth over last year. On other particulars, on a ratio basis you will see that profit from operations this year was 17% compared to 16.4% the year before that and 17.3% the year before that. So this is all in a positive Trend.
PBT had 17.4%, 16.7% last year and 17.6% the year before that. So all this is at a very high level of performance. Similarly, PAT this year is 13.4% against 12.4% and 12.9% of the year before that. Hence slightly on our higher side because of the reason that I told you earlier. So with this I think the presentation that we uploaded for you all is done and we will be subsequently happy to take some questions.
Questions and Answers:
Operator
Thank you very much. We now begin with 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 N2 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 is from the line of Mirsha from Nomora. Please go ahead.
Miyosha
Hi sir, thank you for taking my question. So firstly just wanted to understand on the West Asia issue what has led to the standalone growth being lower at 6 and a half percent versus the 12% growth that we had witnessed in November, December and 9% in Jan and Feb. If manufacturing was hit in Oman and the other region then would that not be sitting in the console sales numbers. So wanted to understand what has led to the standalone sales numbers also being lower.
Rakshit Hargave
So thank you Mehit. So like we said, we did not have manufacturing issues in West Asia. We manufactured but we were not able to dispatch. But I think your answer is on the standalone India business in terms of. Yeah, so we have done a couple of things to manage West Asia. Like we said, we have moved our manufacturing to Mudra so that we don’t have to manufacture ex Oman because the sea routes that you have ex Mudra are much more accessible to reach to various markets. So we have done that. I assume your other question is on the domestic India business and in terms of what is the reason for the sales number that we have shown?
So we had, like we said, a reasonable first two months in the quarter. The West Asia impact hit us in March. But if you take a look at an overall level, see there is a certain challenge post GST transition and I would just like to highlight to you what happened. You see close to 60, 65% of the biscuits that we sell are at 5 rupees and 10 rupees. And the price transition on that because of some dual pricing in the market has caused some challenges in our rural channels and in our wholesale channels because of some dual pricing existing.
So as a result of that we have seen some kind of a transaction slowdown in those channels. But with the pricing getting normalized, we can see that during this quarter they will get normalized and hence volumes in those channels will come back.
Vipin Kumar Kataria
Yeah. So just to add to what Rakshit is saying, within Qatari on this side, so if we split up our business, 75% of our business is basically retailing or B2C and 25% is B2B or wholesale. Now our retailing business which is basically urban as well as E commerce, modern trade out of has done fairly well. But we have a gatekeeper effect in the B2B wholesale which is impacted because of this entire GST transition and the dual pricing. And that’s where we saw some pressure and that’s normalized the growth a bit.
But I think we stay at high single, close to double digit growth in domestic and the consumer confidence in the retail part of the business still remains very strong. Whereas the B2B or the wholesale part is where we have a bit of impact. Yes.
Rakshit Hargave
And this B2B and wholesale and rural part is anyway going to normalize and it should get normalized in this quarter as we move on.
Miyosha
Understood. So actually the confidence of normalization is coming from the other competitor which had not moved to the 5 and 10 rupee packs. So any confirmation if you can share with us? Yes,
Rakshit Hargave
So. So the market is moving. You see also what has happened is the West Asia conflict has introduced inflation and hence people are anyway moving to the 5 and 10 rupee price point and hence the market should stabilize. And like Vipin said, in the non 5 and 10 rupee segment we are growing in healthy double digits. So you see, biscuits is a unique category. I’m sure that you’re also looking at the results of other companies. The 5 and 10 rupee from a consumer point of view, from a price point doesn’t really get impacted and hence that market behaves a bit differently and is also highly dependent on how the trade reacts and how the trade stocks you.
But the rest of our portfolio is going in healthy double digits and we are very confident that in very short period of time these channels will also come back to normalcy.
Miyosha
So the high single early double digit growth that you indicated was not for March, right? It is for April I would assume.
Rakshit Hargave
Yeah, it was for the first two months and then in March because of our inability to supply from West Asia added that low growth of that market. Actually the business off from that part was actually negative for the whole quarter.
Miyosha
Got it. So seems like you’ve addressed both the issues or kind of almost there any indication of how April and May shaping up? Early days for May, but April has shaping up from that growth point of view.
Rakshit Hargave
So you know, I would not want to give details but we are quite confident that by the end of the quarter the market would quite likely stabilize on the domestic front. And like we said on the West Asia front, we’ve anyway taken measures to ensure that the supply channels that we have now are not dependent on the Hormu straight. So we are quite confident that we will do better this quarter.
Miyosha
Understood. Secondly, I want to thank you.
Operator
Sorry to interrupt you, we have a long queue. Can I request to come back for a follow up please?
Miyosha
Sure, no problem.
Operator
Thank you. Next question is from the line of Avnish Roy from Noama. Well, please go ahead.
Miyosha
Yeah, thanks. My first question is on the pricing bit. You did say that Parley and other local players will now soon racket the 4 and a half and 9 rupees. In fact I see Parley still selling at 9 rupee on Amazon BigCommerce as we speak. So maybe it is still working progress. So specific question was what kind of pricing you will need if local players are vacating. Four and a half nine means you will also need the price hike or maybe grammage cut. So if you could tell us what kind of grammage cut or price hike is needed as of now.
Have you taken some corrective action already? Because most other FMCG companies have already taken 3 to 5% price hike as we speak. So if you could give that clarity because in your case wheat is deflationary and maybe cocoa etc. Deflationary but lot of other things are inflationary. So if you could give some sense of pricing.
Rakshit Hargave
Yeah, so like we said, wheat is a bit deflationary but like we said Fuel is highly inflationary. Laminate is highly inflationary. So let me answer both the parts of your question. So we see that many of our other Biscuit colleagues are moving towards to the full price points and that is happening gradually as we see on the other part. Yes, selectively we will have to take price increases and this includes both grammage adjustment and some of the packs which are above 10 rupees, some kind of a price increase.
So both of them are factored.
Miyosha
Understood. Second and last question will be on local players. Other FMCG categories are telling us because of GST rate being lower to say 5% in most cases compliance has dramatically improved. So if you could tell us in Biscuit this was a key benefit so x of whatever 4 and a half 9 rupee coinage issue is there, is there a compliance big improvement? Second is you said you don’t sell much of 5 and 10 on E commerce. I do see partly. I have personally also ordered and right now also parley nine rupees available on Amazon, Quick Commerce and some of the other big commerce.
So are you a bit under indexed on 5 and 10 on Quick Commerce? So is that something you would want to change?
Rakshit Hargave
No, no, no. What I mean to say is compared to the other channels the 5 and 10 rupees sells lesser on E commerce. Obviously I don’t think any of the channel partners will come back and say that Britannia did not supply or did not run programs on 5 and 10 rupees. So what I’m saying is the channel contribution of E commerce towards these lower price points is much lesser. From a compliance point of view I think the 5% GST rate will anyway help in compliance and I don’t see an issue there. I think the so the issue of a compliance not improving or changing from the 18 to 5 rupee price point is not a question for us.
Vipin Kumar Kataria
So avnish on the first point. So see we do not proactively push 5 and 10 on the E commerce business because the natural disposition of a consumer is to buy premium and impulse and that’s where we have this entire game of upgrading the packs or upgrading the brands. So therefore we do not actively promote 5 and 10. The second point on that is that it also leads to lot of channel conflict and for us to thrive in this omni channel world it’s very critical that we have different assortment being focused for different channels.
Miyosha
Just one clarification, that is my last question. When you say you don’t push, what does it mean? For example I can’t see 5 and 10 rupee on big commerce. Based on whatever I have said, you can correct me. Not pushing means no discounting. Is that what you mean? Because I don’t see availability also.
Vipin Kumar Kataria
Yeah, so basically you know it works on algo, right? So I can’t see what you can see on your phone. But basically the algo would be based on incentives and if there is a discount you will see them right up on your screen. So we do not actively promote them and therefore it is only through search mechanism or if you have bought it previously that it will be visible because there is no point actively promoting these packs. It is always better to put your money behind the premium packs.
Rakshit Hargave
Yeah, but if anybody wants to complete a basket and also wants to buy packs of 10 and 5 rupees of Britannia, they will be available.
Miyosha
Sure, sure. Thank you. That’s all for me. Thank you.
Operator
Thank you. I request to all the participants, kindly limit yourself to two questions per participant and rejoin the queue for a follow up question. The next question is from the line of Kunalwara from BNP Paribas. Please go ahead.
Miyosha
Yeah, thanks for the opportunity. So just to understand the dual pricing issue, competition was selling pack was 4 and a half and 9 rupees. So does it in retailers I believe are making higher margins on their packs versus your pegs. So is that the main cause? And like say because of that like you could have lost some market share in the interim. And is it fair to say that now that like say the prices have been reinstated at 5 rupee and 10 rupee like say that situation normalizes and the benefits of GST rate cut which are already visible in other categories will be visible for you only in FY27.
Just to get an understanding of this issue right now.
Rakshit Hargave
Okay, so Kunal, you are asking two questions. So you see the benefit of GST rate cut will be more visible in pacs which are of a higher pricing configuration because the consumer sees that okay, something was 50 rupees is now 44 rupees or as it has happened in other companies and categories where you have 50, 70, 100, 150 rupee packs where the difference is noticeable on a 5 rupee and 10 rupee biscuit, you know, it is not visible so perceptibly because usually what happens is that the consumer buys because it’s selling at a particular price point.
Okay, now in your first question, in terms of some of the competition, you know, selling at 459 and some of the wholesalers wanting to give more preference from our market share, let Me point out that the price realization is also for those players, four rupees fifty per se and nine rupees versus five and ten. So from a value share point of view, if you look at that, I don’t think it would make much of a difference and our own workings on a value share says that the difference is not there. But yes, it could be from transaction point of view.
Some wholesalers and rural markets would probably want to stock that more because they see an opportunistic moment where they can make a higher margin.
Miyosha
Understood. And does it mean that what was not visible in your case, which is benefits of GST rate cut in second half, could be visible in FY27? Maybe you can share your views on how FY27 looks like in terms of both growth and margin
Rakshit Hargave
In the medium to longer term. The GST rate cut is obviously going to benefit the industry and Britannia being a leader, is also going to benefit that, maybe even more. We know that the brand strength that we have and the portfolio that we have at across price points will have a positive impact because of this reduction in GST. Now as far as the 5 and 10 rupee price points that you talked about with the pricing stabilization, we obviously expect that the channels where we may have field, you know, felt a bit of pressure will come back to normalcy.
And our team is very confident that during the course of the quarter that movement has already begun and should stabilize. We also know that the biscuit industry starts to have a sequential growth from June onwards when monsoon starts to hit and when children start going back to school. So we expect those things to start rolling in along with this price of the dual pricing going away as a very positive for us.
Vipin Kumar Kataria
Yeah, and I think the true barometer is this B2C business which is 75% like I called out, which is growing at a very good healthy clip. So I think that gives us the confidence that as this GST transition and the dual pricing is fading out, even this B2B or 25% of our business will start moving up.
Operator
Thank you, Pune. I’ll request you to come back for a follow up question. Thank you. Next question is from the line of Avi Mehta from Macquarie Capital. Please go ahead.
Miyosha
Yeah, hi. Thanks for the opportunity. You know, given this kind of clarification that the fuel pricing is likely transitional and the fact that price hikes are also kind of being taken not just by the industry but by you, could you share your thoughts on whether you expect FY27 to result in a stronger sales growth than what we saw in FY26 because of the pricing component or how is basically just trying to appreciate or understand the domestic demand environment.
Rakshit Hargave
So you see, if we take a look at the domestic demand environment, we also have to see how does the year move ahead as far as conditions which are not in our control. So say for example, you know, whether it is monsoon or whether it is the coming of seasons, you know, they will go on as they are. We are very confident that our portfolio, the strategy that we have in terms of creating demand, the higher advertising spend and the marketing investment doing in the retail trade, along with the strategic levers that I showed you of our strategy on premiumization on future platforms, on the many Indias that we have created, we are quite confident that we will be able to generate demand and have a good year.
But obviously we have to execute that as the year goes on. But the team is extremely confident that we will be able to manage the demand environment and come out on top.
Miyosha
A little bit more here. But when you say a good growth, basically what I am trying to understand is the pricing something that you believe will have a higher impact. Price elasticity or your belief on how it would pan out is what I was trying to garner. That was the key bit and that’s where the question comes from. Not from a numbers perspective but just your thoughts on how you see pricing elasticity kind of panning out and then in turn kind of flowing through growth rates for the industry and for us,
Rakshit Hargave
Say for example, if the players are having to take a price increase, there has already been a price drop which has happened because of gst. So I think you are coming back to a situation which is somewhat equal to what was there maybe six to seven months back. And the demand situation at that time was quite good. So I don’t think that pricing either a bit upwards or either a bit downwards is going to have any major impact from an elasticity point of view. This category is vibrant. There is a lot of action and we are confident that even with the small increase in price which is being necessitated because of the conditions, the demand situation will remain fairly strong.
Miyosha
Got it, got it. And just a bookkeeping. What is the volume growth that we saw in the last quarter? 4Q that’s also myself.
Rakshit Hargave
So we had a volume growth of close to five and a half upwards.
Miyosha
Okay, thank you very much.
Operator
Thank you. Next question is from the line of Siddesh Deshmukh from IFL Capital. Please go ahead.
Miyosha
Hi sir, this is Percy Panthaki here. I just wanted to Again, talk about the top line and the demand. So two sub questions in that. One is you mentioned that the dual pricing, especially in wholesale etc has been the problem area. Would you be able to give us some kind of rough idea had that problem not been there? How much, I mean how much has that problem dampened the sales growth by Is it like a 200bps, 500 Babs, 700bps? What’s the order of magnitude of that? That’s first part of the question.
And the second part of the question is large food companies that have reported the other snacking categories like chocolates and noodles, they have sort of shown close to about 30% kind of sales growth in is it that the consumer behavior is shifting and the type of snacks that they want to sort of consume. There is a little bit of shift in the market share of snacking activity between different categories. Because even if I assume that the biscuit category overall has grown a little faster than you have, it would still not be close to that 25, 30% kind of mark that these other brands are growing at.
Rakshit Hargave
Okay, so Percy, thank you. So you basically have two questions. So obviously if we take a look at the wholesale and the rural channels where this dual pricing has had an impact, so obviously it would have impacted our sales. Now it is hypothetical for us to say whether it impacted by 200 or 300 or 400 basis point. But yes it did have an impact. Now we also see transactions and we can see that there has been impact on transactions. What we are very confident is that with this price stabilizing that 200, 300, 400, whatever you are saying is that real number will come back to us.
Now maybe Rasput,
Miyosha
If you can call out what is the kind of growth apart from this affected portfolio, what is the growth in the rest of the portfolio? That also could give us some idea of what the growth is tracking
Rakshit Hargave
The rest of the portfolio which is not impacted. For example, if I take at rest of general trade, if I take a look at key accounts where I’m, I’m growing in healthy double digits, okay, If I take a look at modern trade, I’m growing even stronger,
Vipin Kumar Kataria
Upwards
Rakshit Hargave
Of 50%.
Vipin Kumar Kataria
Modern
Rakshit Hargave
Trade is upwards of 15, 16%. So where the consumer is interacting directly as we used to interact directly also in these channels before gst, our growths are very healthy which is why we are very confident that this is just a temporary blip. Now for me to put a number of 2%, 3%, 4% will be a bit challenging, but whatever is that loss or Shortfall will get recovered. On your second question, see, I don’t think stacking consumption shifts happen so dramatically that chocolates will start growing at 30% and biscuits will slow down.
Obviously what has happened is that the price elasticity of sales for these categories, they have benefited more from the GST reduction. So if GST reduction is showing a noticeable drop in price because many of these categories are independent of the five rupee conundrum, obviously growth will go up. We can also see for ourselves where we have PACs which are still at higher price point where some price drops have happened, are showing a higher transaction value and a higher traction. So I don’t think that the consumption shift over one quarter is anything to be read.
I think it’s a function that the true benefit of GST as it was supposed to be is reflecting on those categories earlier and much faster. But I don’t think it has got to do anything with a biscuit category versus a different snacking category or a chocolate category.
Miyosha
Got it. May I be permitted to squeeze in one more question?
Rakshit Hargave
Well, from our side, you are welcome up to the moderator. Just
Miyosha
A quick one. The, the other expenses growth of 18% on a top line growth of only 7%. What is driving that?
Rakshit Hargave
So you know, like we said, we are gradually also upping the investment in brand and advertising. So one of the reasons for that is that we have upped our advertising expenses from last quarter and we will be investing more vigorously in our brands.
Operator
Thank you Percy, I’ll request to come back.
Miyosha
Thank you so much.
Operator
Thank you. I request to all the participants, kindly limit yourself to questions per participant and rejoin for a follow up question. The next question is from the line of Anand Shah from Access Capital. Please go ahead.
Miyosha
Hi sir, thanks for the opportunity. Just a couple of questions. Firstly on this, the dual pricing on the Jan 3 march. So this dual pricing did not have any impact in January 3rd and it particularly only impacted March, is it? And also I mean if you remove the West Asia impact completely, it’s on international business. When would the Jan 3 march, the core India business that would be steady or that was just throughout the months back?
Rakshit Hargave
No, Anand, I think there’s an echo. No Anand, I think.
Operator
Sorry to interrupt. Anand, can you mute your line please?
Miyosha
Yeah.
Rakshit Hargave
No Anand, I think you misread what we said. The impact of the dual pricing has existed through January, February and March. In March we have to add the specific challenge coming from West Asia. So that’s how we read it.
Miyosha
So if I didn’t state it so then just purely If I remove West Asia, then normalized growth would be 99% for Jan.3rd March. Let’s say for example, I mean it would be a more smooth. Yes,
Rakshit Hargave
Yes, yes. And that would be is the impact of dual pricing. So like in the earlier question asked by Percy, if hypothetically there is an impact of that dual pricing then if you add that then that becomes a real growth.
Miyosha
Okay, perfect. This clarifies a lot. And just lastly on the, on the RM inflation you are seeing and the price hikes you already taken, if you can just give a color on that.
Rakshit Hargave
I didn’t hear you on RM inflation. So like we said. Can you repeat your question?
Miyosha
I was just asking on a broad base you did color on the overall RMs but as an index level what kind of inflation you are seeing and what hikes you have already taken.
Rakshit Hargave
So like we said, wheat is a positive for us. Although like I said in the last one month because of rains and some poor quality of wheat arrivals, the price has gone up but about one month back so it was good but it is going upwards. So wheat is going upwards. Palm oil is also higher although we are covered. But we know that palm oil has a connection with fuel prices. Sugar is more or less normal. We told you, you’re talking about raw materials. So these are the three most important raw materials for us.
And fuel of course, fuel is a challenge for everybody. So you know we use lpg, we use PNG and the inflation on that is openly available in the market which is also what we are having to pay.
Miyosha
What kind of a price? Sorry to interrupt you Anand,
Operator
Kindly come back for a follow up question.
Miyosha
This is the start of the question. I may have just asked that. Please
Operator
Come requested to come back. Thank you. Next question is from the line of Arnam Mitra from Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.
Miyosha
Hi, my first question was actually on the GST impact on price point packs. So Rakshit, what we have seen in many other foods categories is because of the mathematics of a 5 and 10 rupee pack, when the GST goes down, your net realization per pack obviously goes up. As a company, of course, assuming transactions are same. So in my understanding in noodles, chocolate kind of categories there has been a significant uplift in value growth because of that. Could the same logic not play out in biscuits also once this price issue is over or do you think biscuits are a little different and therefore if you give higher grammar the transactions can actually drop in terms of the number of packs?
Rakshit Hargave
No. So I think biscuits is also a bit impulsive and is Also a bit planned purchase. So if you are giving a bit more biscuit or a bit less biscuit, I don’t think from a consumer transaction point of view it has a bigger impact because it’s a part of routine shopping basket, people keep buying it regularly. So for the biscuit category, the GST change I think is very silent unless there is a dramatic shift where you have to reduce the grammatical much or something which becomes noticeable to the consumer, which is not the case.
Miyosha
Got it. So my question actually was should you then not see a significant increase in value growth once the transition has happened? Because as a company you would realize lot higher on a per pack basis given the lower gst and therefore should we not see a much faster acceleration in growth as the things stabilize? I’m not saying going back to normative levels, but should it not be significantly above normative levels given this dynamic?
Rakshit Hargave
So you see, we are also positive that we will have a good realization. But because of the issues in the market in the last four or five months, we have not been able to see in what way this trend will move. But if it happens like that, we are happy that you brought it to the fore.
Miyosha
Got it. And my second and last question was on margins. So given the cost pressures and also your initiatives on innovation and BIMI strategy, is there any implication for ebitda margins for FY27? Could you have some impact as you invest in these and also face cost pressure or do you think you have enough cost saving efforts to mitigate these investments?
Rakshit Hargave
So you know, Britannia has a history of being very tight in its operations and very strong cost effective program measures which obviously have been put into four. And obviously when we spend, we will also be selective and try and put our marketing mix model in such a manner that while we invest more, we invest where our returns are better. I think there are some learnings that we have from the past and we will apply that. So while yes, the operating environment is tough, the fuel inflation, the laminate inflation is there for us, but the team is confidently that within a certain band we will able to manage it.
Miyosha
Okay, thanks. That’s it for my side all the way.
Operator
Thank you. Next question is from the line of Nihal Jam from hsbc. Please go ahead.
Miyosha
Sir Rakshat, Good morning. A couple of questions. The first was a clarification that when you mentioned Exo West Asia, is it that the growth of the domestic operation was 9th cent or. Sorry to interrupt,
Operator
Your voice is breaking. Can you come in a better reception area please?
Miyosha
Is it better now?
Operator
Slightly Hello.
Miyosha
My first question was a clarification that could you clarify that when you mentioned the 9% number was that the growth for the domestic operations for the Q4 quarter and you know the impact on the conserved growth of 3% was because of the international impact of West Asia.
Rakshit Hargave
So like we said, the domestic business was growing at more or less close to 9, 9.5% which we have said. And the small pressure that we had in the month of March was only because of West Asia. And going back to, you know, the questions, two previous back to this domestic growth of nine, nine and a half percent, you have to add whatever basis points we have lost potentially because of this dual pricing in these particular channels. I hope that answers your question
Miyosha
That does. The second was that obviously in your presentation you are reflecting the cost based on the current inventory that you’re holding just to understand, based on the current inflation because obviously the spot prices are much higher than what raw material may be holding. What would be the ballpark inflation that we are facing right now?
Rakshit Hargave
So you see in terms of palm oil we are covered for the next five months and I think we have a favorable rate against the market. Also on wheat we are one of the most proactive and aggressive buyers and we have a good reading of the market. So also on wheat point of view, the inventory that we have right now for the next, I believe we are now already covered for about five and a half, six months. Months is also at a price which is attractive even if you add the carrying and the inventory cost. So the inventory that we are holding right now is a favorable one.
Operator
Thank you. The line for the participant drop. We move on to the next participant. Next question is from the line of Vivek Maheshwari from Jeffreys, India. Please go ahead. Hi
Miyosha
Rakshitan team, two questions. My first question is again on the volume growth rate. So Rakshit, this volume growth number five and half percent is in terms of grammage, right? In terms of total grams or whatever, kgs tons.
Rakshit Hargave
Yes.
Miyosha
So if you look at you know, price point pack 65% and you know the fact that GST rate was cut quite a bit, that itself would have given like more like seven and a half, 8%. So in terms of number of packs, basically there would be a reasonable decline in this quarter. Is that fair?
Rakshit Hargave
So like we said, a lot of the 5 and 10 rupee pack sell in the wholesale and the rural channels and we can see a result of stress in number of transactions. So your observation obviously is correct, which we are very confident will get corrected as we go ahead in the next few months.
Miyosha
Okay. And is there anything on the competition side, Rakshit? Because there was an interview, you know, in the media from number two player which said double digit volume growth and all. Do you see, I mean if you have two parts, one is on the competition side, what are you seeing? And second, difficult choice. But if you have to make between, let’s say growth margins for you versus market share, how will you, how will you, you know, how will you design your strategy from the next few months perspective if there is something like that.
Rakshit Hargave
So you see, if the number two player has said that they are experiencing double digit growth, then obviously it could be that they have had a certain volume advantage in these particular channels which could have happened. Our
Vipin Kumar Kataria
Understanding is that 25% for us is as close as 40% for them. So they would have got that advantage.
Rakshit Hargave
And secondly, choice between market share and margin, I think we have to keep going stronger on market share. But like we said that we are also adept at managing margins. So it is a careful orchestra which we will play very nicely is all I can tell you. We don’t want to compromise one for the other. So we will be much more smarter in our allocation funds marketing where it makes an impact. So there is a lot of work happening and we have growth ambitions but we will also be able to manage the margin profile.
Miyosha
Got it? Got it. Thank you. Wish you all the best.
Rakshit Hargave
Thank you Vivek.
Operator
Thank you. Next question is from lan Tejas Shah from aventuspark. Please go ahead.
Miyosha
Hi Akshay, thanks for the opportunity. On the strategic pillars that you have called out and then you partly answered the question. But the hallmark of Britannia for last 10 plus years was relentless focus on co cost efficiency and then that consequent was margin expansion. So the sense that I got from your commentary so far is that we have reached to a stage where we need to reinvest in brands and operations. So should we say that the band that we are currently is a very comfortable band and from here on non linearity that we saw past decade would be at least in the near future.
Rakshit Hargave
So you know, let me answer the question in this way. The relentless focus on cost and efficiency is now ingrained in the DNA and even this year we have a very aggressive plan to do that. But we also realize that we have to create new pillars for growth and this includes again investing in our brands, premiumization, creating new verticals for growth, readdressing India in the way we would want to address as many Indias. So all that will get added to the fact that we will be very sharp on our cost and the efficiency programs.
So it’s not. But yes, like we said, as we move ahead, you will need to see new growth vectors for us as we also want to move towards a more complete foods company.
Miyosha
Perfect. Just the extension of the point that you made. That’s a part of the strategic pillar also, that innovation, adjacency and future platforms. So should we interpret that Britannia will be adding more platforms or you believe that because this ambition has been there for a while, but scalability has not come through, so all the adjacencies that you need are already on the table or you’ll add more platforms in terms of expansion.
Rakshit Hargave
So we will be adding more platforms and you will hear about that because I think we have to broad base ourselves and there are new opportunities and I think we need to address those new opportunities in the way that Britannia would want to address them, so you would hear about them in the future.
Vipin Kumar Kataria
Plus, I think we also spoke about some of the signature brands that we have and those are certainly underleveraged and that’s what we will also need to amplify along with the new product platform.
Miyosha
And would you. Do you believe that this can be done organically or like many of your peers, you will also go in organic way to bridge the gap?
Rakshit Hargave
Can you. Can you come again on that?
Miyosha
Yeah, sorry.
Rakshit Hargave
Inorganic play is a part. See, we have not been. We have not done that. But there is active scanning and there is a very serious intent. But like we said, what we want to acquire has to tick a few boxes for us. Number one, it has to help us do something new. It has to help address a consumer need which we are not addressing. Or it has to get us some skill or technology or capability which we don’t have. Where it ticks some of these boxes, we will be ready. And like we said, we also have created a new platform on health.
It also needs, you know, so that also would be an active consideration as we will expand this in the coming months.
Operator
Thank you, Tejas, for all your questions, ladies and gentlemen, with this, I now hand the conference over to Ayush Agarwal for closing comments.
Ayush Agarwal
Thank you everyone for spending time with us on the call today. We look forward to interacting with you again in the future. Thank you and have a good day. Thank you. Thank you.
Operator
Thank you very much on behalf of Britannia Industries Ltd. That concludes this conference. Thank you for joining us and you may now disconnect your lines. Thank you.