Patanjali Foods Ltd (NSE: PATANJALI) Q1 2026 Earnings Call dated Aug. 14, 2025
Corporate Participants:
Unidentified Speaker
Sanjeev Kumar Asthana — Chief Executive Officer
Kumar Rajesh — Chief Financial Officer
Analysts:
Unidentified Participant
Sucrit Patil — Analyst
Yug Modi — Analyst
Parth Vasani — Analyst
Abhishek Mathur — Analyst
Abhijeet Kundu — Analyst
Presentation:
operator
Now being recorded SA IT IT. Ladies and Gentlemen, good day and welcome to Patanjali Foods Limited Q1FY26 earnings conference call. This conference call may contain certain forward looking statements about the company which are based on beliefs, opinions and expectations of the company as on date of this call. These statements are not guarantees of future performance and involve risks and uncertainties that are difficult to predict. As a reminder, all participant lines will be in the listen only mode and there will be an opportunity for you to ask questions after the presentation concludes. Should you need assistance during this conference call, please signal an operator by pressing Star then zero on your touchstone phone.
Please note that this conference is being recorded. I now hand the conference over to Mr. Sanjeev Asana from Patanjali Foods Ltd. Thank you and over to you sir.
Sanjeev Kumar Asthana — Chief Executive Officer
Thank you very much and good evening to everyone. Thank you for joining us today for Patanji Food Limited’s call to discuss the results of Q1FY26. I am joined by the company’s CFO Mr. Kumar Aylesh along with Mr. Prendu Jha from Investor Relations and our IR partners Strategic Growth Advisors. We have uploaded the results collateral on the stock exchanges as well as the company’s website for your reference. Let me begin by giving a quick snapshot of our performance during the course of this call. We will be referring to standalone financials. The revenue for Q1FY26 stood at approximately 8,900 crores with year on year growth of 24%.
The total EBITDA margin came in at 3.75% and the pack margin stood at 2.02%. I would take a moment to share my perspective on the evolving demand patterns in the FMCG sector will directly shape our business and strategies thereof of Patanji Foods. This quarter we saw favorable inflation trends with CPI hitting a 77 month low of 2.1% in June owing to a sharp drop in food inflation, particularly vegetables and pulses. Over the past few quarters, rural markets have outpaced the urban markets. Q1 FY26 followed similar trends. The momentum in rural demand continued and demonstrated a preference of well established brands.
The urban demand was under pressure. Key commodities like edible oils, cereals, etc. Saw consumers opting for smaller packs or cheaper alternatives for regional upcoming brands. This impacted the product consumption trends. However, by the end of the quarter the industry witnessed early signs of revival in the urban consumption mainly due to easing inflation and recent fiscal and monetary policy measures. Those evolving market dynamics created opportunities for regional and emerging brands to expand Their presence gradually challenging the dominance of old economy names industry veterans, especially in the urban markets. Unseasonal rainfall adversely impacted the performance of seasonal products like beverages due to disruptive demand during the quarter, the pricing for commodities such as palm oil remained high and wheat prices remained lower on a year on year basis.
However, they began to soften sequentially towards the end of the period. Palm oil increased by 7.35% on year on year basis and reduced by 10.2% on quarter on quarter basis, the palm oil packs were expected to remain range boundaries and downward trajectory driven primarily by recent policy measures and market dynamics. The geopolitical tensions, primarily in the Middle east, led to an excess supply of palm oil in the global market that pushed the palm oil prices down. Effective May 30, 2025, the Government of India reduced the basic customs duty on crude palm oil, sunflower oil and soybean oil from 20% to 10% falling over eight months of elevated import taxes.
This also had an impact on our own results which I’m going to speak about. The effective import duty on these products which includes the basics customs duty and additional fees now stands at 16.5% down from the previous 27.5%. This move is expected to lower industry wide input costs, enable more competitive pricing and potentially higher drive higher consumer offtake. Notably with Palmer now priced below both soybean and sunflower oil. This trend bodes well for the overall demand in the upcoming festive season. Furthermore, with the differentiated duty differential between crude and refined oils, domestic refining operations are poised for improved utilization and competitiveness over imported refined products.
On the distribution front in Q1 FY26, the alternate distribution channel continued to register rapid volume migration from general trade. This led to intense competition and margin compression. Now coming to our quarterly performance, overall demand remained muted in Q1 FY26 and profitability was impacted by elevated raw material costs such as butter, milk and sugar along with a reduction in import duties on palm, soy and sunflower oil. Allow me to give you a more detailed walkthrough of the quarterly segmented performance for the edible oil segment. The segment revenue was 6685 crores year on year growth of almost 25%.
The branded edible oil sales contributed 72% of the total edible oil sale. Sequential sales of the branded mustard oil and sunflower oil surged with double digit growth year on year. The EBITDA margin was 1.78%. The impact on margin can be attributed to multiple reasons. Following the government’s decision to reduce duty Buyers deferred procurement in anticipation of price stabilization which weighed on the overall demand and pricing scenario. The higher cost of goods, mainly due to the higher cost of inventory, further reduced sales of premium edible oils in Q1FY26 versus the strong growth in Q1FY25 impacted the margins.
However, the reduction in duty leading to normalized pricing trend on crude edible oil is a positive development for our oil refining segment. It catapults strong growth momentum in the edible oil business. Moving forward, we remain focused on leveraging this to enhance supply chain efficiency and strengthen our competitive edge in the edible oil business. Our oil refining capacity as of FY25 was 33.36 lakh tonnes operating at 44.85% utilization for oil Palm plantation business we doubled our quarterly revenue and booked 592 crores in the oil palm plantation business. As of June 2025 the total cultivated area increased to 92,133 hectares with approximately 43.4% of the plantation falling under the prime yielding age category.
Currently there are 48 state of the art nurseries under Patanji Foods. The oil palm plantation business remains a strategic long term growth driver particularly for margin improvement. Coming to our food and other FMCG and HPC segment, its combined quarterly contribution was 25.80% to total revenue reflecting steady progress towards strategic goal of increasing the revenue share. On the HPC business front, the segment delivered healthy quarterly revenue of 639.02 crores. Within this, the revenue contribution from dental care was 332.18 crores. Skin care was 157.21 crores. Home care was at 91.61 crores and the remaining was by hair care and other products.
Dantkanti, our flagship herbal oral care brand delivered robust growth during the quarter we clocked an ebitda margin of 18.7% versus 15.7% in Q4.25. In the HPC business we witnessed healthy volume growth in low price point packs. Our HPC portfolio expanded this quarter led by new launches in dental care leveraging on the brand Dandkanti. Our strategic focus is on premiumization with greater emphasis on Dumkanti advanced sensitive aloe vera red medicated gel and toothbrush wines. Also in the export market, Dumkanti had strong demand. It was exported to nine countries in QY F1 FY26. We look at the HPC segment as a significant contributor to our growth.
We reiterated our 15% year on year revenue growth for the segment. We also anticipate a 200 basis point margin expansion overcoming quarters. If you recall that this was a commitment that we had made before the acquisition for Food and the other FMT segments Coming to the food part the quarterly revenue from food and other FMC segments to debt 1660.67 crores, non essential and premium FMCG categories had subdued demand during the quarter. Various government welfare schemes such as free distribution, duty free imports of yellow peas, seasonal impact, elevated raw material prices and slow recovery in urban demand led to a degrowth of 15% in revenue on year on year basis.
As part of the demand boosting measures, the new SKUs were launched at attractive price points such as Patandi Kauvi 900ml priced at 695 and 450ml at 370, ensuring both affordability while safeguarding market shares for our various products. The impact will be seen in the coming quarter. Our EBITDA margin was at 5.23% versus 9.42% in Q1 FY25 on a year on year basis. Despite low inflation, certain items of the commodity basket remained elevated. This along with previous held high cost inventory exerted cost and margin pressure. For instance in the beverage category the raw material costs particularly for Ambah and fruit pulp at a 20% hike on Q and Q basis.
For Ghee the cost of butter increased by 25 to 30% on year on year basis and as explained previously, wheat and palm oil witnessed year on year rate inflation elaborating on the performance of biscuits vertical which clocked 8.24% year on year growth. Dudes continued to lead our portfolio contributing 304 crore in revenue this quarter 15% year on year growth. Mariel products delivered consistent performance with steady Q1Q growth booking revenue of 50 crores. We continue to invest in these brands while continuing to innovate as well. During the quarter the revenue of textured soya proteins stood at 139.69 crores.
Our refreshed Ghee strategy implemented over past few months has already shown results with a 23% year on year growth. It is important to note that in Chi the raw material butter it saw rise in price on Q on Q basis though to counter this we implemented price hikes, it was only by middle of the quarter leading to softness in margin. The Q2FY26 is expected to capture the full benefit of the revised pricing. During the quarter we rolled out new products across India including cholesterol, care liquid and Ortho Care Liquid in our Medicated Juice range. New launches are aimed at tapping into the growing Urban Preventive Health and Nutraceutical segment.
The upcoming pipeline includes 10 to 12 SKUs focused on complete Body wellness. Nutraceutical marked year on year growth of 37.6% positive EBITDA in Nutraceuticals was achieved through manpower restructuring as intensified focus on e Commerce and G2C maximized the use of our megastores. In Q1FY26 we added various touch points and established new direct outlets with focus on middle class maneuvering that raster. We also expanded our rural reach through Superstockage Network Grameen Witras program and have set up new Grameen Rog Kendras as rural India continues to be a volume driver. Some of the other key updates include On Emerging Channels of Distribution during the quarter, the modern trade was under pressure due to footfall drop and stiff competition from E Commerce and quick Commerce.
Further for us, SwiftCommerce is now 70% of our total E commerce business Total E Commerce business. As a company we continue to focus on strategizing with the traditional format of trade. However, we are also undertaking proactive steps to deepen our presence across these emerging platforms through tailored strategies and stronger partnerships with our Omnichannel roadmap. We aspire to remain ahead of the curve and to position ourselves to capture growth across all key touch points. Lastly, our ad spend during the quarter stood at 0.72% of the revenue from operations. My Closing Comments Looking ahead, our focus remains firmly on strengthening our market presence by investing strategically in expanding our distribution footprint, ensuring wider and deeper reach in both urban and rural markets.
To address evolving consumer behavior and down trading trend, we will continue to focus on affordable products and smaller size banks that cater to both rural and urban demand. Alongside this, we are ramping up our brand building effort. On the macroeconomic front, multiple factors such as healthy monsoons, continued NSP support, tax benefits for individuals in fresher seasons are converging to create a conducive environment for demand recovery and we are hopeful for H2FY26 will be brighter. I thank you for your continued support and trust in Patanji Foods as we navigate this evolving landscape together. I now conclude our presentation and open the floor for Q and A session.
Questions and Answers:
operator
Thank you very much. We will now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press Star and one on their touch tone telephone. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press Star and two participants are Requested to use handsets while asking a question. Ladies and gentlemen, we will wait for a moment while the question queue assembles. The first question is from the line of Sukriti Patil from Eyesight Fin Trade Private Limited. Please go ahead.
Sucrit Patil
Good evening to Patanjari team. I had a question for Mr. Sanjeevana. I joined a bit. I joined the call a bit late so hence I’m asking.
Sanjeev Kumar Asthana
Yes, I’m online. I’m very much online.
Sucrit Patil
Yeah, yeah. So first of all congratulations on the record revenue and FMPG traction company has achieved as Patanjali aims to make FMPG half of its turnover. How are you thinking about evolving the brand architecture and product portfolio to win in premium urban categories? Especially where Ayurvedic intersects with functional food, neuroretical or even clean label. Could we see Patanjali repositioned as a wellness cost lifestyle brand beyond the traditional staples? Yes sir, that was my question.
Sanjeev Kumar Asthana
Yes, sure. I mean it’s very interesting and this is something that we’ve already always spoken that one of the intents that we declared while this entire restructuring of the company was being done that in five years time our intent was that we will have 50, 50 revenue accruing from edible oils and FMCG portfolio. Now to the question of the company’s repositioning and if you look at the overall segment in the way it is going right now, what we are seeing is that you know the change as it is being done, we as part of the strategy acquired all the leading businesses that the company had with the parent company.
So for example we started with the biscuits, we did for the foods, we did for the hpc. We launched Nutraceuticals and now we’re witnessing two trends in the marketplace. One is that you very rightly said that this whole sort of call it fusion or call it amalgamation or call this entire change on towards the wellness, health, Ayurveda, even overall orientation. I think Patandi is among the as a right to win that we call. I think we are right up there in terms of achieving it. And both the Persona that Patandi carries, the imagery that it has and the brand equity that it has built over a period of time is very supportive to that effect.
What we are doing is right now that all our products, you know, whether in terms of the HP fee, if you look at the foods as a business, if you look at even biscuits and even partially some of the nutritional products like soya based products etc. That we have, the whole idea is that our positioning remains very Consistent that it’s around a wholesome health and nutrition that Patangi is working towards. And if you see all our new brand ambassadors, if you look at what Swamiji has been espousing all through, and the core strategy of the narrative is the company has built around its brand, we are pretty much on path to do that.
We are continuously exploring new businesses where, you know, we can start sort of bringing newer products. There’s a new product development work which is going on, it’s entirely on similar lines. So I’m reasonably confident, so you know, whether in terms of the stage of development where we are, that whether that takes three years or it takes two years or it takes a while longer, maybe another six months or one year. But this aspiration of 50% of the core revenue coming out of the core FMCG products, that part we are very convinced about and I think building up the market, creating new marketplaces.
Because Patanji has always prided itself in creating new markets and being the market to that extent, being a leader in terms of creating new categories, building on that front, we are pretty confident that we are very much on that path and I think we will be able to make that. So people’s perception, the consumer’s orientation, our whole sort of narrative and imagery that we’re building both through ATL and BTL that we work on, we are reasonably confident that we’re pretty much on course to get on towards that segment, get onto those numbers of 50, 50 between FMCG and edible oils.
Sucrit Patil
Thank you very much. My final closing question is to Mr. Kumar Rajesh. As you scale FMCG, mix and invest in brand building, how do you internally evaluate ROI across media strength, channel expansion and innovation? Is it, is there any framework that balances short term volume lift with long term brand and margin?
Kumar Rajesh
Hello? Hello? Hello.
Sanjeev Kumar Asthana
Yes, yes, you are audible.
Kumar Rajesh
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Can you repeat the question?
Sucrit Patil
Yes. I want to understand as you scale the fmcg, mix and invest in brand building, how do you internally evaluate ROI across media spend, channel expansion and innovation? Is there any framework that balances short term volume list with long term brand activity and margin expansion?
Kumar Rajesh
So see there are three, four parts of your question. So first of all just you see the FMCG segments compositions. So we are, we are just building the brand by taking all the justice. Rightly said, as Kana sir said that we have introduced on the brand ambassadors and all for establishing our brand properly and we are introducing all new brands, also a new SKUs also in the separate brand to reach out to the rural and urban levels. So this is one part as far as media spend is concerned, we are just increasing the level of media spend to gain very good gain from the brand premium.
That’s why earlier we would be able to achieve the branded sale of below 70% but now it is above 70%. Asana sir rightly said that we have achieved more than 72% in the edible oil. As far as FMCG is concerned, we are selling mostly all the sales in the branded forms. So this is towards the brand building.
Sanjeev Kumar Asthana
So Rajesh, if I may expand that to the question that you asked. There is a, from a framework perspective, there is a very clear thought process that the spend that we do on the advertising should lead to dollar and cent returns on an immediate basis that uplift in terms of the sales and the returns that we have observed. So for example, last quarter we spent 64 crores on the direct advertisement expenses on the ATM. Now this, the framework is very clear that if you are spending, you know. The X amount of money, it should. Lead to X dollars that should be returning in terms of immediate sales pickup. In the revenue side. However, the longer term margin expansion that you spoke about, I think this part is something which is both. There’s a, there’s a math involved, there’s a science involved and there’s an art involved as well in terms of how exactly we are looking at. So this measure is very clear that currently our longer term construct of margin is 8% to 10% that we’re looking at the margin overall on the FMCG side and very clearly we’re looking at the margin construct on the available oil between 2 and 4%.
Our view is very clear that 200 basis point margin expansion that we’d like to attain in the HPC we’d like to go upwards of in the double digit minimum EBITDA margin of the FMCG that we want to clearly establish. And the third one is that on the long term framework that you mentioned on the margin expansion is that a double digit EBITDA at a company overall level by expanding continuously or margin construct on both the new businesses of SMC that we have and the margin expansion we should go towards a double digit margin construct. This is this framework we have always consistently maintained to the investors to be on all the investor calls and everywhere we have said that company’s aspiration is that we would like to grow our revenues to 50,000 crores of which 25,000 crores would come from SMCG, 25,000 crores would come from the edible oils and the margin should expand towards a double digit EBITDA.
We are doing consistently five and a half to six percent. We’d like this to go to 10% and at that level our EBITDA will be about 5,000 crores. That is a very stated, clear intent that the company has declared. That is all the internal framework as well as that we’d like to work on and head in the direction.
Sucrit Patil
Thank you very much. That is, that is a very detailed guidance which you have given and I wish you and Patanjali team the best. Of luck for all the future endeavors.
Sanjeev Kumar Asthana
Thank you. Thank you.
operator
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Manvi Karnik from MV Securities. Please go ahead.
Unidentified Participant
Hello. Hello.
operator
Yes sir, Your order.
Unidentified Participant
So I wanted to know how much market share the new age or regional player have taken from Patanjali across products.
Sanjeev Kumar Asthana
Sorry. So new age market players, in which category you mentioning?
Unidentified Participant
Like new age or regional players? Any categories?
Sanjeev Kumar Asthana
Yeah. So ma’, am, it’s, you know that, you know that lot of emerging new players who relied largely on E commerce and their own websites, who largely relied on, you know, low cost entry into the, into the marketplace. They have been very consistently across the region. In a smaller way they have consistently done and it is no different than any multinational who has to compete at a national level in the new market that they enter. They have to compete. So I would say that all of them, you know, in terms of working through, they have their own strategies, they have got their own ad spend, they’ve got their own strength also and certainly they work in terms of taking some market share.
But it doesn’t necessarily come out of Patanji’s market share because as you said, our positioning is fairly unique in one sense that this whole sort of one is that our very firm and clear customer base which is there, which consistently has stayed with us over the years, over decades now. So they pretty much stay with us. We are continuously attracting new customers. So as you know, the person who asked the first question, that’s exactly what we’re working on, that in terms of enticing, working towards encouraging the emerging new customers which is typically the Gen Z which is between 20 and 45 years of age, they are interested in the wellness, they’re interested in Ayurveda, they’re interested in nutrition and health and they are the ones who are getting attracted to Patangi.
So to an extent I would say yes, at a local level, regional level, there might be some market share in some odd product categories or some skus There might be some share going but nothing that I can speak of in any significant way that any one of these players would have, you know, would have sort of snipped on our heels and taken away any significant amount of market share from Patanji.
Unidentified Participant
Okay, sir, thank you so much for answering my question.
operator
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Yug Modi from AP Capital. Please go ahead.
Yug Modi
Hello. Hi sir.
Sanjeev Kumar Asthana
Yes, you are.
Yug Modi
Two questions.
Sanjeev Kumar Asthana
Can I request the speaker little louder please?
Yug Modi
Hello sir, you had mentioned that there are some green shots in urban India that you have seen. Could you tell me a bit more on that with some examples?
Sanjeev Kumar Asthana
Yeah, so for example that, you know, I think urban India as a, you know, this whole challenge which was there earlier and as you know the inflation component, the food is the largest segment. So what we’re seeing right now is the softening of the commodity markets overall. And the price benefit with the companies have tended to transfer in certain cases, not in all cases. The companies are basically passing on the benefit of the commodity inflation onto the consumers. So we believe there should be an uptick in the consumer demand. We are seeing that very clear cut, you know, the green shoots of some small bit of recovery, especially, especially in the larger cities now and the stress that we saw in a couple of quarters previously, that is tending to go away.
And I think the uptick, what we’re going to witness is especially on the, on the food side that we are feeling pretty confident that even the food which was the biggest source of stress for the consumers, that is tending to have an uptick. And so, so we should see some bit of growth in the demand on the urban side. So even otherwise that if you look, go by the data that you know, while the rural markets continued expanding at about 3%, we are seeing that in the urban center the growth is about 1%. And this momentum progressively can tend to pick up as we go forward.
Yug Modi
Yes sir. And lastly, sir, how much will they contribute to our top line and margins?
Sanjeev Kumar Asthana
So look, you know, the growth as you saw this this quarter that you know, owing to certain specific, you know, the actions of the government or the market, you know, there’s some disturbance. But overall our target is very clear that and I’m reasonably confident that this year we’ll be able to accomplish that, that’s between 8 to 10% growth we should get in the overall FMCG segment we will expand 15% on our HTC portfolio and we will expand between 2% and 3% on the edible oils. And that guidance we pretty much Stay true to and feeling reasonably confident that we’ll do that now some bit.
The only one marginal change is that in very low margin categories like staples, especially in areas like rice and others where at a cash contribution level if the margins turn negative then we would not tend to go down that path of continuing to build up our business. We are pretty confident that the core fmcg, which is around ethnic foods, which is around the soy proteins, which is around the biscuits business, the nutraceuticals and all the value added products and HPC that we do that we believe fully committed that we should expand the food portfolio between 8 and 10%.
And if it means that compromising a bit on the staples part of it, which is to be, you know, from very low margin to negative margin, then we are willing to sacrifice that growth for the overall margin of the company.
Yug Modi
Perfect, sir, that answers my question. Thank you.
operator
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Parth Vasani from KK Advisors. Please go ahead.
Parth Vasani
Yeah, hi, good evening and thank you for the opportunity. Just one question. So large players have looked at D2C brands for inorganic opportunities. However, so far your inorganic plans have been in the group only. So I mean are we looking at further opportunities or some thought process on that? If you can just help elaborate that.
Sanjeev Kumar Asthana
No. So we have got a fairly robust D2C portfolio of products except that we haven’t launched any new products targeted only D2C market. So for example, very substantial part of nutraceutical business is small in absolute numbers considering that the overall size of the company, but nearly 18% of what we do is by D2C is what we’re selling to consumers. In the nutraceutical side, similarly on the food businesses, certainly in the HPC category, certain products tend to much more amenable to B2C sales. So it is there. It’s very small compared to the overall size of the company has right now.
We haven’t looked at launching separate brands for only D2C but the one category in which we are very bullish on is the nutraceuticals where we will continue to introduce new brands, we will continue to focus on D2C and we are reasonably confident of expanding that range. The nutraceutical side on the foods and the HPC we haven’t given. You know, I would say that the focus has not been in launching new brands for the D2C but otherwise our D2C business is fairly robust on across the range of categories that we deal business in.
Parth Vasani
Understood, sir, that was Helpful.
Just a follow on. I mean overall as a group, I mean what would be the D2C share of our revenue currently
Sanjeev Kumar Asthana
right now it would be below 1%. It’s very, very small right now. So we have got. So for example, just to tell you on the non traditional channels we do about total about 12.5% is what we do overall between the modern trade, E Commerce and quick commerce and D2C and within that, you know, the distribution is that we do about 4% through E commerce, we have about 1.5% that we’re doing through Quick Commerce and the balance is all agreeing to the modern trade.
So both Quick Commerce and the growth in E commerce is expanding fairly rapidly. So the D2C would be very, in a very small sort of fraction of 1% right now. But we are working on it because we’ve got our own Odemi app under which we operate, we have our own website. So we, you know, both through the social media and otherwise our own website, people can place orders. The delivery is becoming a lot more efficient. We have got partnerships done with various companies. So that is going on pretty efficiently right now. But it is in absolute terms it is small.
But growth wise if I were to give you a percentage that is growing at 40% on a very small basis would mean nothing. But we are reasonably confident that we will be expanding that distribution channel of D2C. Got it sir. And just one last, if I may squeeze in so any inorganic plans to drive this growth. So there are a lot of opportunities. Many a times they keep coming especially in different regions. So we explore selectively on those opportunities. So for example there are some white spaces that we have and some gray spaces with different regions for different categories and we are open to that.
Except that if the pricing is not right for the acquisition then it does not make any sense because the fundamental belief that we have is that our ability to launch a new category, to build up an entire sort of range of activities around that, to make it into a successful brand, if we do it organically, we do at a much lower cost. So the price is sensible if the brand fits in well into our portfolio, if it fits into our value system of Patanjali. I think these three are very critical elements. So we don’t mind exploring acquisition of good brands and we are quite open to that.
But every time we evaluate we normally come up short on these sort of brand acquisition. So right now there’s nothing seriously on the card which I could say that yes, this is what we’ll do in a hair care category in South Africa or XYZ category. So I don’t see anything visible really in front of us on the table.
Parth Vasani
She also got it that profit answers all the questions. Thank you very much for the elaborate answer.
operator
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Abhishek Mathur from Systematics. Please go ahead.
Abhishek Mathur
Yes. Hi sir, good evening. Thank you for the opportunity. It’s quite heartening to see the growth revival in your biscuits and high margin foods segments. Just wanted to check in. Biscuits. Are we expecting this momentum in terms of high single digit growth to continue going forward? And in the high margin foods business you mentioned cow ghee as something that came back strongly which are the other sort of products in the high margin foods segment which have contributed to this. Growth turnaround in 1Q
Sanjeev Kumar Asthana
so biscuits, you know what we had always targeted that we are going to be building up into actually lower double digits of growth. And what happened was also that while the overall market was very sluggish, we kept on going at quite a rapid fire clip. And we still believe that the opportunity for expanding, expanding into spaces where either we are distributed less today or the spaces where we need to add on more sort of riding on top of what we do currently, then we can expand that market. But we are very confident that biscuits certainly at the rate of 10% year on year growth is what we’ll achieve perhaps even more.
And second part is, and we believe that that space is available to us because our biscuits are very differently positioned and the consumers really have responded very well to the offering that we have given to them. And every new market we have gone to or the markets where we were less active when we have gone, they’ve had a phenomenal sort of response to the offering that we gave. So biscuits, we are pretty confident that we’ll continue growing at double digits. Now the question is that earlier two years back we were growing at 20% year on year and last year our growth tapered off closer to high single digit.
But now again this year we are expecting that we should be double digit plus. So we are reasonably confident that double digit basket growth will continue on the ghee front. As you mentioned, actually what happened in this quarter was there was a slight drop in the ghee sales and as I mentioned in my opening remarks also that there was a pretty substantial uptick in the prices of the raw material, the commodity on the butter side and this led to very substantial sort of price increase on the raw material side we did not pass on to the consumers well into the quarter and so when we did that it both impacted the margin and the sales as well.
But we are reasonably confident, I think there was a stabilization in the price of the butterfly, there is the price sort of correction that we had to do in the marketplace that we’ve done. And so second quarter we should see a substantial uptick on the Taugi side. On the other premium products that we have, like we have got a range of HPC products which typically we mentioned also that the margin is pretty good. For example, Dan Kanti is fantastic. Our skin care products are doing exceedingly well. So we’re reasonably confident that, you know, this 18.7% margin that we made, I think we consistently expand grow that 15% level.
So the blend of the premium products that we have and the value pricing that we do, I think that equation is something that we are very mindful of. So that we’re able to maintain a margin construct on the foods FMCG overall of 8 to 10% that we want that to EBITDA level that we’ll be pretty consistent about and as well as 15% of the HBC that we feel pretty comfortable with. So I think we should be able to maintain the growth momentum that we have in the areas that we do and the places where we have had either sluggish growth or we had negative growth that we are correcting to make sure that we start meeting those objectives.
Abhishek Mathur
Right sir, and my second question is if you can just help with the absolute EBITDA numbers for biscuits, staples, higher margin foods, nutrients, nutraceuticals for the first quarter.
Sanjeev Kumar Asthana
Yeah, I can give you that. So for example on the briskets, you know our margin was 9% EBITDA 9 point actually 2%, you know, margin that we had on a 451 crore revenue we had a 41 crore margin. On the nutraceutical side the base is very small, you know, so the margin wouldn’t mean much. We had a 17 crore sale and the EBITDA margin from negatives that we had on account of high cost, et cetera, we turned the corner and we got into that. On the Nutella side we had 140 crore of revenue. We had 20 crores of EBITDA margin where we made 14.5% margin.
So the margin profile that we had, similarly on the HPC side we had a, on the non food we had 639 crores of sale and 120 crores of margin. About 18.7% margin that we had on the business.
Abhishek Mathur
Right, thanks for the detailed answer. That’s it for me, thanks.
operator
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Abhijit Kundu from Antique Stockbroking. Please go ahead.
Abhijeet Kundu
Yeah, hi sir, my question was on. Hi. So on Staples, what would be, what would have been the revenue? You missed that during the course.
Sanjeev Kumar Asthana
Revenue, as I mentioned, it was 616 crores and pretty flat in terms of EBITDA. The whole idea was that, you know, the rice and dal and so what has happened is that there’s a massive intervention of the government across the board on the four staples. So whether it’s wheat, rice, pulses and sugar and salt, edible oil, by virtue of being very largely, you know, import led, there is not many times the government, the only tool it has is of the duty structure, custom duty. It doesn’t have a pricing control really, but it’s trying to do that now, I don’t know if you’re aware, asking every single company to declare their physical stocks to the government every week for 15 days.
And which is quite an onwards task for a very distributed industry like this. So what has happened is that the space available for the private trade to really create a value on account of. The, you know, the, for the sort of supply chain investments that they do or you know, the amount of work they do towards the branding and distribution side or, or you know, the strength they have on the, you know, origination that they might build up. I think that space is getting increasingly crowded by the government. So not that it is only the shape of things to come, but right now that is a situation, for example, that nearly 40%, I don’t know if you guys track that nearly 35 to 40% of the country’s padding production is getting procured by the government.
So it has got a problem of. Overflow of stocks and which is ultimately finds its way to the marketplace at highly subsidized levels. So the choice in front of companies is twofold. One is that you know, you continue staying in that business and subject yourself to the risk of inventory losses. If the government were to take a sudden action and you know, price it lower and sell it in the marketplace, then you left holding the inventory high and dry. And the second option is that try and make it towards a branded side. But as you know and I know that, you know, the branding only has a limited role to play with the pure staples are concerned.
So whether it’s a rice and dal and otherwise. So I think we have taken a very conscious choice that we will continue building the business selectively where it makes sense for Us but if it means a direct cash loss, if it means a very direct too much of exposure that we might have to the government’s intervention, then we’ll be careful with that category. So I’m reasonably confident that you know this ballpark range of that last quarter results that we have was 616 crores. So 600 to 1000 crores we’ll continue doing because that is something which is a sweet spot for us but not at the cost of, you know, losing money on that.
So we’ll be careful about it, we’ll be cautious in the way we execute on that. But we will not go crazy simply for the top line growth because we have got ample opportunity to grow our top line in the other areas where the margins are far superior and we. Feel pretty confident about those areas.
Abhijeet Kundu
So then structurally is it not right that you reduce your exposure to those business? I mean your non staple business obviously will grow but on an absolute basis. Also. Does it not make sense to reduce exposure as much as even. Even though you say that, you know, in the 600 to 1000 crore band it is still a sweet spot to be but still the profitability there becomes pretty volatile, right? I mean and government, Indian intervention will always be there because your other part of the business, I mean the staple part of the business is a pretty strong business. And you know, so, so one question is why not reduce it? Because this is rather than you know, getting exposed to the vagaries. And second is what are the benefits of being in this business? Does it give you volume? Substantial volume.
Because generally you know all is staple businesses, even the other companies who are into it, they, I mean they always have problems of volatility primarily in the, on the margin front, you know, even in the even. And my another question was that now in edible oil what is the kind of, you know, margins for the year can we look at. Because we are sitting on a high base, high margins. And now that now that government has cut down the duty and edible oil prices have crashed from there, what is the kind of margin that we could look at for this year, next year? I mean broad range.
Sanjeev Kumar Asthana
So let me answer the first question that what you raised so Staples is actually a very good category to be in because it allows you. We don’t sell it in largely in bulk, you know, in terms of just giving it away in some 50 kg Bora or whatever. It’s a brand which goes to the consumer’s kitchen and I think it adds. A huge amount of value. Exactly. Like edible oil. We speak about that. If in every kitchen you’ve got a patanjali rice bag of rice and pulses and spices and sugar and salt and otherwise it’s of huge value. So both in terms of the brand recall and otherwise, we have a very extensive network of, you know, building up supply chains around that. We’ve got, you know, great strength at managing the price risk around it. And alongside we also have got capacity to deal with, you know, both the logistics and supplies and otherwise. And I think that’s a terrific strength that the company carries.
The challenge in couple of quarters which can accrue is Abhijit. Is that where we get stuck with, you know, the sudden government action? So at one level we have done so. Now if we can, if we can go back, you know, previous 10 quarters or 15 quarters, I think barring one or two quarters, we would have done consistently well. You know, we made a margin base. I don’t have that precise number, but I’m happy to so sort of go back and check for you. But we would have consistently made margin of between 3 and 4% on the staples as a category consistently.
So it is barring so this particular quarter, you know, which, which has been there and I was trying to explain that reason as to what is truly happening at the, you know, the policy level in the way government is driving it. So I would say this is not something that we should scoff at in terms of giving it up. It has a brand equity at a strategic level. It gives us the brand equity. It gets our brand into the consumer’s kitchen. It gives us a margin construct also and it fits in pretty well with the capability which the company has on.
In terms of origination and otherwise. To your second question on the edible oil, I think the dent in the last quarter was precisely on 30th of May when the duty structure change and we had to take an inventory markdown. I’m pretty confident of our guidance of 2 to 4%. And I think this quarter itself you will see a change that we should be closer to 3% plus and 4% and rather than closer to 2%. And I think this year I’m reasonably confident that we should end the year with very closer to the higher end of the projection that we’ve done on the oil side, which would be closer to about, you know, at least that’s.
What we are targeting. Four percent is what we should make on the. So I’m very confident that on the veg oil front, our strategy is very sharp, very clear, our management of risk is very strong. Our, you know the, you know the brand equity that we have especially after having taken the brand ambassador like Dhoni and we continue with that is very strong. So we feel pretty confident of being closer to 4% than on the lower end of the band.
Abhijeet Kundu
Okay. And what could be the kind of growth rates, revenue growth rate that we can you know achieve during the year or so?
Sanjeev Kumar Asthana
It depends. So edible oil as you know that the revenue growth rate we have stated as a target that will grow between 2 and 3% but we are more focused on the volume side of it. So there was a marginal dip that we saw in last eight, nine months on the volume front with about little less than 2% it dropped. But overall you know what we are confident is of maintaining the volume and growing perhaps between 2 and 3%. So there was a dip in India’s imports, India’s demand etc. Owing to multiple different reasons the last 6, 7 months.
I think that’s the thing of the past. I’m seeing a very robust recovery. We are heading into the peak festive season. We are heading into you know, strong robust demand in the marketplace, the economy. We just discussed you know earlier about. The rural urban demand. So I’m reasonably confident that India should see, see close to 3, 4 between 2 to 3% volume growth and I think we’ll be pretty much consistent with. That volume growth on that front but. Because the price point, price point could be different. Abhijit. So that I’m not saying on the projecting on the revenue side that will exactly go up like this but I think we should see 2 to 3% growth which is fairly in line with what the country’s growth is and our margin should be closer to 4% and we try to do better than that.
Abhijeet Kundu
Thanks. That’s it from my side.
Sanjeev Kumar Asthana
Thank you.
operator
Thank you ladies and gentlemen. We will take that as a last question. I would now like to hand the conference over to the management for closing comments.
Sanjeev Kumar Asthana
So I would thank you know that. For the patient hearing everyone hat and. We wish everyone the very best of. The Independence Day and Janmashmi as they ensue. And with this I conclude the call and if there are any further queries that you have you have got an Investor Relations Advisor SGNA and Investor Relations Head Mr. Preendu JA who are very much on the call so you can reach out anytime and we’ll be very happy to answer all your queries.
operator
Thank you. On behalf of Patanjali Foods Ltd. That concludes this conference. Thank you for joining us and you may now disconnect your lines. Thank you.
Sanjeev Kumar Asthana
Thank you very much.
Kumar Rajesh
Thank you. Thank you.