Tata Consumer Products Ltd (NSE: TATACONSUM) Q3 2026 Earnings Call dated Jan. 27, 2026
Corporate Participants:
Nidhi Verma — Head of Investor Relations and Corporate Communication
Sunil D’Souza — Managing Director, CEO & Executive Director
Ashish Goenka — Group Chief Financial Officer
Analysts:
Abneesh Roy — Analyst
Tejas Shah — Analyst
Meher Shah — Analyst
Nihal Mahesh Ram — Analyst
percy panthaki — Analyst
sheela rathi — Analyst
anurag dayaal — Analyst
sidharth negandhi — Analyst
Presentation:
operator
Ladies and gentlemen, good day and welcome to Tata Consumer Products Q3FY26 earnings conference call. As a reminder, all participant lines will be in the lesson only mode and there will be an opportunity for you to ask questions after the presentation concludes. Should you need assistance during the conference call, please signal an operator by pressing Star then zero on your touchstone phone. Please note that this conference is being recorded. I now hand the conference over to Ms. Niti Verma, head Investor Relations and Corporate Communications. Thank you. And over to you.
Nidhi Verma — Head of Investor Relations and Corporate Communication
Thank you so much and welcome everyone to the Q3 FY26 results for Tata Consumer. As we usually do, we’ll first walk through the key highlights of the quarter for the first 10 to 15 minutes and then we’ll open the floor for Q and A. Today I’m joined in the room by Mr. Sunil D’, Souza, Managing Director and CEO Mr. Ashnish Goenka Group CFO Mr. Ajit Krishna Kumar, Executive Director and COO. I’ll just draw your attention to the disclaimer statement which is on your screen. With that I’ll hand it over to Sunit.
Sunil D’Souza — Managing Director, CEO & Executive Director
Yeah. Thanks Nidhi. So if I were to summarize. We’ve had a decent quarter where we had a 15% revenue growth. India branded business posted underlying volume growth of 15% India tea up 3. As basically as the tea prices have come down, we’ve started passing on pricing back to consumers. Overall YTD we are growing at 9%. Just to put it in perspective, we’ve always guided for a mid to high single digit growth for the tea business. Salt had a, I would say strong quarter. 14% revenue and 15% volume as we did targeted actions on consumer price and trade promotions coupled with A and P in specific geographies.
So we saw strong results there. Growth businesses which we always guided for being 30% of our business. Growing at 30% we were quite in the ballpark. Growing 29% and contributing 30% to our revenue. Surpassing thousand crores in quarterly revenue. Tata Sampan had a strong quarter. 45% growth. All volume driven. RTD delivered strong performance 26% again all volume driven. Capital Foods and organic India together grew 15. Organic India was in the 30s and Capital Foods India grew sequentially month on month. We were impacted a bit by the US tariffs because 20% of Capital Foods is international.
International business maintained a strong trajectory. 11% constant currency revenue growth primarily led by US coffee which had strong volume growth as well. Non branded business up 20 with profitability remaining healthy. But Margins coming back to normative levels as coffee prices have stabilized albeit at a higher level. Consolidated EBITDA up 26 so EBITDA has grown roughly 2x of revenue margins expanded 60bps quarter on quarter 120bps year on year to 14.2. Our innovation pipeline remains strong with 15 new product launches throughout the year. Innovation to sales is roughly 4.8 almost close to our target of 5. So 1600 crores of India beverages with the growth of 7% foods similar number at growing at 19.
International 1300 growing at 18 and non branded growing 23 total 5000. This was a landmark quarter for us having crossed the 5000 crore in a quarter number year to date close to 15,000 crores growing at 14% with all businesses delivering double digit revenue growth. Yeah 5112 crores top line growing 15728 crores of EBITDA 14.2 percentage points PBT up by 11% to 563 crores before exceptional. Net profit of 399 crores which is up by 130bps versus last year and we’re now sitting with 1272 crores of cash nine months almost 15,000 crore growing at 14. Group net profit before exceptional is growing at 17% to 1137 crores and yeah 1272 crores of cash.
Yeah so starting with the India business we maintained our ANP close to the 7%, 6.8% to be precise. Salt market share we had volume growth. On top of that we had market share growth as well of 40bps market share of tea. As I mentioned this only tracks about 57 to 60% of our business down 70bps. Next slide. I had talked about last quarter about our pilots on go to market. Just to repeat a lot of the salt strong geographies were also the geographies where our new growth businesses were supposed to be strong and therefore to provide the requisite focus we have three types of pilots.
We had three types of pilots running a separate salt distributor in salt geographies where salt contribution was very high and a non salt distributor in geographies where salt plus tea was very high. Salt alone was not salt plus tea was very high. We separated into core and growth and there are points cities where smaller outlets we’ve now got a common salesman going in whereas for larger outlets we’ve got separate split routes selling by category going in. All the three pilots more or less were bang on on the KPIs that we had budgeted for and therefore now we are rolling it out.
Nationally we are about 82% done on the national rollout. By first week of February we will be 100% done. 270 odd distributors have been transitioned to the new go to market model and we’ve added 160 more distributors. We’ve used AI to align routes and servicing norms. Also dispatch plans, auto replenishment systems have been aligned and the sales hierarchy has also been realigned as needed. For example if it’s the salt plus all non salt so the territory executives and area managers will handle only salt and we consolidate at the region level. So to give dedicated focus both from a supervisory level as well as from an execution level on the ground.
This I already talked about. 29% contribution growing at 29% growth and growth businesses now account for 30% of our India business. New launches across health and wellness, convenience and premiumization. We have launched Matcha, we’ve launched RTD Green Tea and Fruit Tea Green Tea which includes L Carnitine as well Tata Copper now in Glass. We’ve launched various formats of coffee and jelly and flavors in coffee. Soulful. We’ve launched SlimCare in convenience we’ve got ready mixes for Paneer chili, Shezwan and Manchurian. We always had ginger garlic paste but there is an opportunity for a separate ginger and garlic.
And we’ve launched the high end Chili Soy, Light soy which is primarily used in Southeast Asian Japanese restaurants and rock salt. We’ve taken it to the next level by launching a Himalayan version. Our ratings underscore our commitment to responsible business. We’ve upped the game on MSCI ratings, upped our score on S and P Global and done decently on all the other ratings. In macro terms, tea prices are coming down broadly to the 2024 levels, albeit in the last end of Q3 we did see a little bit of an uptick on tea prices. Keeping a close watch on that coffee has started to come down except after the Venezuela action there was a bit of uptick on coffee.
The forecast is that from the current about 370 to 390 it should start coming down. But your guess is as good as mine. On coffee pricing, we remain agile and ready to take pricing as and when. Needed. In packaged beverages. 3% volume translated to 3% net revenue for tea. Marginal movement in market share, albeit gross margins, expanded handsomely out here as tea prices came back to normal. India Foods 19% net revenue growth 16% volume salt up by 14 on revenue Sampan 45 salt market share up by 40bps ready to drink close to a 200 crore net revenue. Remember Q3 is probably one of our lower quarters and therefore we are well poised to recover strongly in the coming season. Revenue up 26 primarily driven by volume up at 27 and we’ve expanded the ready to drink tea and coffee aggressively in the meantime.
Capital Foods Organic India Capital foods close to 240 crore revenue organic India 120 crores. Combined gross margins of close to 50%. Non branded business revenue up 20. Solubles revenue up is 34%. Tata Starbucks second successive quarter of same store sales growth of 3%. Average daily traffic which was the issue is now more or less stabilized and ticket is holding. We opened 12 new stores during the quarter, we are now at 504. We opened our second Reserve store in Gurgaon and now we are present in 81 cities with Jabalpur being the latest city to be opened.
UK flat on revenue, market share on black close to 19% and we continue to maintain 10% value market share but very strong delivery on profitability in the uk. The US business very strong revenue growth driven both by volume and by pricing at 31. Market share slowly inching up both for K cups as well as coffee bags. In the US coffee bags are growing roughly four times the growth rate of K cups and given our strong share in bags we remain quite confident to continue this growth at least in the near term. Canada as we took some aggressive pricing on tea, revenue has been sluggish.
Growth in specialty has been heartening at 2% and overall more or less maintained our market share at a 25%. Ashish, over to you for financials. Thank you Sunil.
Ashish Goenka — Group Chief Financial Officer
I think most of you would have seen the numbers. I’ll keep it very brief. Our consolidated revenue across the milestone of 5000 crores this quarter growing at 15% growth was fairly broad based with all three vectors of the business delivering double digit growth which is India, international and non branded. In terms of margin, we expanded our EBITDA margins by 120 basis points sequentially by 60 basis points. EBIT margins expanded by 150 basis points this quarter. This was largely driven by the recovery in India margins and led by the moderation in tea prices and therefore recovery in the TEA margins.
International margins continue to remain impacted by the US coffee, albeit some of the pricing interventions that we have taken in the last quarter has improved the margin profile. But the gap remains on non branded. There was again a contraction in the margin largely on account of the fact that in the base we had some inventory gains and fair Valuation gains which of course are not repeating. But margins have come to more normative levels right now. On a nine month basis very quickly. Top line in consolidated basis growing at 14% under line 13 and of course at a YTT level our EBITDA margins have contracted by 80 basis point because of the impact that we had both on tea and coffee in the first.
Overall financials. As Sunil said, top line growing at 15%, EBITDA growing at 26% and PAT growing at 34. In terms of exceptional items we had three this quarter. We had a one time gain on a sale of property which was offset by a one time charge that we took on some of the impairment of assets because of the transformation that is happening in our coffee factory in the us. We also did a one time catch up as a consequence to the labor codes which were announced recently. The gratuity catch up and the leave in cashmere catch up was about 23 crores which is what you see in the exception line.
And with that the PAT growth was about 34%. I think I’ll not spend time on the standalone and the segment performance. Maybe we can jump to the Q and A straight away. Happy to take questions.
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 the Touchstone telephone. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue you may press star and 2. Participants are requested to use handsets while asking a question. Ladies and gentlemen we will wait for a moment while the question queue assembles. We’ll take our first question from the line of Abneesh Roy from Nuvama. Please go ahead.
Abneesh Roy — Analyst
Thanks. Congrats on strong performance. My first question is on Tata Soulful and Tata Sampan. So Tata Soulful I wanted to understand how is the market share in the past two years and this is a great exciting market on paper but reasonably challenging because there is one strong multinational company and then there is a long tail of lot of new companies. Some of the existing companies have also entered. So what is the right to win here? How are you able to differentiate? So if you could discuss Tata Soulful on Tata Sampan very strong numbers, 45% growth largely essentially volume led.
So if you could tell us here how have the legacy business done and how have the new businesses like the Cashew Nuts etc those have done so we can get a sense of where is the growth coming from any one of their given 45% growth.
Sunil D’Souza — Managing Director, CEO & Executive Director
So Abneesh, let me take your second question first. The Sampan growth is broad based. So the base businesses of Poha Pulses, Makana, all of them are firing off on great cylinders percentage growth wise. So let me say it has come from the new businesses as well as from the legacy businesses. Right. The best part is my dry fruits business is now close to a 250300 crore annual run rate. Cold press oils is again in the similar ballpark. All of these have been launched in the last 18 to 24 months, right. So differentiated product very specifically entering trust deficit categories, very, very clear winners.
In fact the good part is this is just the base foundation because the ultimate idea in dry fruits is we will play the whole spectrum. Now that we know the sourcing, we know the time of the year, when to source, which channels, what are the packs which work, what are the dried fruits which work. Now when we enter the flavored, roasted, salted, that is where we will move up the value ladder. So that’s a good part. Similarly in cold press oils, I think we’re off to a great start because normally we would list on E Commerce, then go to I would say SAMTs, then GT and then modern trade.
This time we’ve had pull from modern trade pulling us into the outlet even before we went to GT or samt. So that’s how powerful the proposition is. So we remain bullish on some fund. But again I’ll go back to our guidance is for roughly a 30% growth and we will remain guided by that. That’s number one On Soulful we are close to a double digit market share in most categories which we operate. We don’t track for all the categories in which we operate, but mostly close to a double digit number. The big numbers for us are in the Choco fills as well as the muesli segment which is growing very fast.
But here’s the thing. In Soulful it is not one particular category that we are playing at. If you look at it, we have expanded to different categories and therefore expanded tam and therefore we are not playing in the small pond and given the fact that we are playing in rusks, we are playing in choco sticks, we are playing in muesli, we are playing in breakfast cereals as well. So it’s a wide ranging thing. Broadly, let me say we are decently satisfied but we do think we can take Soulful to the next level and I wouldn’t worry about one incumbent versus all startups etc.
Everyone can carve out their own space. I think with the plans that we have we remain quite confident.
Abneesh Roy — Analyst
Thanks two follow ups to my first question. So one is you said 30% is a more normal number to look at from a growth perspective for Sampan but growth was 45% so there is no one off. You could clarify on that. Second is on the margins for dry fruits and say for soulful, any color you can give. From a outlook perspective when do you see that normalizing versus the overall non core portfolio X of the salt and say your tea business, when do the margins for these two sub segments normalize versus the non core versus the non legacy?
Sunil D’Souza — Managing Director, CEO & Executive Director
So let me put it this way, there is no one off in Sampan this quarter. I’m just trying to temper expectations on the number that we might not always hit a six, sometimes it will also be a four. So from that perspective I think 30 is a realistic number for us to keep targeting while we know we can drive 45 and we’ll continue to drive for that on the margin perspective I always said in Sampan we were close to double digit margins. The good news is we have hit double digit. We remain confident of edging up the total business to close to 15 sort of number in the medium term.
Near to medium term. And that’s what so while we are growing top line, the good news is we are constantly improving the margin profile as well. Going forward the margin profile will only get better. As like I said in dry fruits the money is the margins are in the roasted salted flavored ones. But for you to get there you need to know how to play the base game because then you add the value additions on top of that.
Abneesh Roy — Analyst
So thanks. Last question. Salt which is generally very highly penetrated last two quarters have seen super volume growth. I do understand you did mention on the Grammage edition the trade incentive and promotions but on a full year basis does it normalize because initially customer will buy more but he will not consume more salt anyway given it has a health kind of a question mark. So would you say that next two quarter this could start normalizing to a much more modest number or you see that market share gains will continue.
Sunil D’Souza — Managing Director, CEO & Executive Director
So apneesh, we’ve always guided for salt being again in the mid to high single digit growth on revenue volume being about 4 to 5 and rest being value price mix moments. Just to give you a perspective, I think the top six brands are probably 56 57% market share in this category and the balance 44 is a long tail of what I call no name brands. So the scope for growth is enormous. It is not necessarily driven by per capita consumption. It is driven more by market share and improved penetration of Tata Salt, not necessarily salt, we are replacing other brands in the household.
So I mean the market size, it could be 2x of what it is if you just extrapolate from that perspective. But mid to longer term we have maintained that it will be mid to high single digits.
Abneesh Roy — Analyst
So thanks, that’s all from my side. Thank you.
operator
Thank you ladies and gentlemen. In order to ensure management is able to answer queries from all participants, kindly restrict your questions to two at a time. You may join back the queue for follow up questions. We’ll take our next question from the line of Tejas Shah from Aventus Park. Please go ahead.
Tejas Shah — Analyst
Some good set of numbers. So first question is, is the strong momentum that we are witnessing, is it a broader consumption recovery or largely led by our own execution or mix of execution and base effect and how do you see this sustaining over coming quarters?
Sunil D’Souza — Managing Director, CEO & Executive Director
So let me say we have always said we will drive double digit top line and bottom line ahead of the top line and I think we’ve roughly delivered that. I wouldn’t comment about the broader consumption and recoveries etc. I do think the teams have executed our plans quite well and the plans have changed through the year. For example, we didn’t have the salt targeted actions baked in into the numbers or the expansion of certain brands like Sampan baked into the numbers. But let me say Tata Consumer I would say is an entrepreneurial company. As we see opportunities, we jump in.
It’s not that it’s not in our budget so we’ll execute next year. That doesn’t happen here. So if we see opportunity we will drive it. We’ve seen opportunity this quarter and across the board. I think the teams have driven the numbers quite well.
Tejas Shah — Analyst
Very clear sir. Second, the growth portfolio has done phenomenally well and we have reached your target of 30% of the India business at least a quarter ahead of your timeline. So how should we think about this number now moving? Would you say that this can be 40, 50% of portfolio by let’s say India 29 or you are keeping it open as of now.
Sunil D’Souza — Managing Director, CEO & Executive Director
So let me say growth businesses have to contribute to a higher percentage of the India business fundamentally because they’re defined as growth businesses, they’ll grow faster than the core. So the mix will change and that’s a conscious strategy. As we seek to diversify away from being a salt and tea company into a multi category food and beverage company. This will happen. We are in the middle of putting numbers together for the next year and beyond. And as and when we have clarity we will definitely get guidance. But as of now I would say 30 is a good number to put a peg on as and when we look at a different number we will revert on that.
Tejas Shah — Analyst
That’s all from my side, thanks.
operator
Thank you. We’ll take our next question from the line of Meher Shah from Nomura. Please go ahead.
Meher Shah — Analyst
Hi sir, thank you for taking my question and congrats on a great set of numbers. Firstly, on T pricing, have all the price cuts in tea captured in the quarter. If not, what percentage is reflected in three Q and secondly on tea now with tea prices going up again, fair to say that given that you have bought most of the tea prices in 2Q you will have a lower cost advantage and can that have a tailwind to margins? So that’s on.
Sunil D’Souza — Managing Director, CEO & Executive Director
So Meer, let me say broadly on commodities we have given up on forecasting with accuracy. Right. Given climate change etc. Etc. You don’t know how things pan out. Number one, so we remain flexible, agile, able to move in either direction and that’s what I maintained, even in coffee. That’s number one. Number two, there was a small uptick on tea prices at end of the quarter. But remember January to about mid March, early April is a very lean season in the north. Now how the north crop comes out mid March to early April will determine the opening prices then.
Therefore I would not make a statement as to whether we will be better off or worse off. Right. We’ve done a calculation, we’ve got inventory for a decent part of Q1, but we will be flexible on moving up or down depending on how the commodity fares when the season opens. And to the other point, we have already passed on most of the increases in this quarter and that’s why you saw volume equal to value growth for the quarter. And as of now, if nothing changes broadly, we’ll go back to the mid single digit volume plus a couple of basis points of price mix.
Meher Shah — Analyst
Understood? Understood. Secondly, can you talk a little bit more about the GTM changes that you highlighted? 80%. You’ve already said that pilot is already in place. Now that is only for those number of states, eight states or so, or it is for Pan India. Some clarity on that. And what is the impact on the growth area? The 30% growth that you would call out for the growth businesses captures these GTM changes or one can expect elevated growth because of this.
Sunil D’Souza — Managing Director, CEO & Executive Director
So number one, the primary reason we’ve done these GTM changes is to continue to drive growth now as the percentage of growth Businesses grows and the absolute grows. I think even maintaining the 30 is a decent enough target to have. So in the short to medium term we’re not changing the 30. The GTM changes fundamentally are supposed to be making sure that they drive growth. A they are pan India. They are not restricted to specific states. We had shown the maps on certain things on the strong points where capital foods was strong, where salt is strong and where organic India was strong.
I mean if that is the deduction for the eight states, that’s not a right number. We have done a pan India more than 5 lakh plus, more than 10 lakh plus cities. Any city which is either overwhelming share of salt then it is a salt plus non salt where salt plus tea is overwhelming. For example, Calcutta was a 91% salt plus tea and only 9% contribution from growth. So there we have gone plus core plus growth and then across every other city where we have common distributors and we had split routes earlier, we’ve gone back and we’ve.
Because the retailers told us that for small drops, small this thing, they don’t want multiple salesmen coming in and therefore the smaller outlets. If I remember right, it’s more than 3,000 rupees drop per month in urban and in metros and 2,000 in lower than metros. We have common salesmen. Beyond that we have multi category salesmen going in split routes. So the idea is the salesman has dedicated focus above the salesman. The TSC and the ASM is also structured by category. So for salt the guys only handle salt. And if it is core and growth there is a team which is only handling core, there is a team which only handling growth.
So that gives dedicated focus behind execution. So not only supervisory level, execution level. Everything is segmented to drive growth.
Meher Shah — Analyst
Got it. And last question on the margins I know you highlighted double digit revenue growth higher than revenue growth will be the profit growth. Can you just highlight what will be the tailwinds for margins? You know, happy to know that your dry fruits portfolio will contribute to Sampan etc. But again it will be in the overall scheme of things will be relatively smaller. But what are the other drivers that can lead to better margin growth and drive higher than revenue growth on the profitability front.
Sunil D’Souza — Managing Director, CEO & Executive Director
So I think the single biggest lever will be scale Simply right? Growing 14, 15%. In that ballpark we get huge leverage of scale number one. Number two is the mix of the portfolio. We’ve got a balance between the higher margin acquisitions, tea salt to be growing enough to offset the lower margin growth of Sampan for example, and we managed that so far. Overall like I said, when we exit Q4 we should be in the ballpark of a 14.5 to a 15% EBITDA margin. 15 is a normative number which we need to get to longer term as we continue to drive premiumization in our portfolio and drive premium categories in the portfolio and improve margins for the base categories, for example pulses.
It was a negative five when we started five years back. Today it’s close to a double digit. Right. So as we improve that as well, we would expect to continue to improve the gross margin profile longer term. I’ve always maintained a good foods business in India should be a 17 plus. We are targeted towards that in the longer term.
Meher Shah — Analyst
Got it. Thank you Sunil. Wishing you and the team all the very best.
operator
Thank you. We’ll take our next question from the line of Nihal Mahesh Ram from hsbc. Please go ahead.
Nihal Mahesh Ram — Analyst
Yes sir. Sunil, good evening and congratulations on the strong performance. The first question was on Capital Foods. If you could just give a sense of what the domestic growth was leaving apart the international impact that you mentioned because of tariffs and ideally I think as you were highlighting, you were expecting the changes there to sort of reflect in better growth. So what is still missing for that part of the business to see a pickup.
Sunil D’Souza — Managing Director, CEO & Executive Director
So overall capital foods has improved month on month for us and like I said, we expect the go to market changes that we’re doing to provide impetus to that overall. The softness in capital foods was like I said, month on month. So the early part of the quarter was a bit soft and more importantly 20% of the business is exports largely the US and while tea and coffee base tea, coffee and base spices margin the tariffs have gone to zero. Rest of the portfolio still remains at 50%. So as you’ve taken up prices aggressively, that has had quite a bit of an impact.
Nihal Mahesh Ram — Analyst
Just possible to call out what was the growth in the export part of.
Sunil D’Souza — Managing Director, CEO & Executive Director
Capital Foods exports was roughly flat for the whole quarter.
Nihal Mahesh Ram — Analyst
Understood. The second question was on acquisitions. Now historically you’ve always mentioned that whenever you’ll incrementally be evaluating it has to be aligned to distribution. You know, potentially something that can sort of go in the same truck as you’ve highlighted. If you ever have to consider categories which are say beyond this then what are going to be the aspects which you look into?
Sunil D’Souza — Managing Director, CEO & Executive Director
It’s the same, nothing changes, right? A it has to pass strategic filters we’ve already defined. Right now we’re in food and beverage. In food and beverage you define Specific categories where we play in more or less. We’ve ticked all the boxes on the categories that we wanted to play in and we’ve got the brands now to play across the food and beverage spectrum. A B apart from that, it has to make sense from a value creation perspective. Right? So unless that happens, I don’t think we’ll be doing acquisition. But that’s not to say that we won’t.
We are keeping our eyes and ears open. Like I said, almost every deal that happens in India does pass through either Tata Sons or Tata Consumers. So we either will do or will not do depending on the fact that it has to tick off both the strategic and financial filters.
Nihal Mahesh Ram — Analyst
Got it. Sunil, maybe some more questions. I’ll come back in a few seconds.
operator
Thank you. Next question is from the line of Percy Pantaki from IIFL Securities. Please go ahead.
percy panthaki — Analyst
Hi sir, my question is on Sampan as brand overall. All the categories that Sampan deals in.
Sunil D’Souza — Managing Director, CEO & Executive Director
Is the brand break even at a EBITDA level. So Percy, we’ve always maintained we do not do EBITDA for brands. For every single business we do something called margin after advertising and promotion expenses because below that the sales force, the operations are all common cost. I can always do a hypothetical allocation excel sheet accounting number but that’s not a true way to judge the business. The map for Sampan is positive and it is improving quarter on quarter in line with our expectations.
percy panthaki — Analyst
Understood, sir. And given that this business is a lower margin and it would be growing at very high pace, do you think. That it will sort of put a. Drag on the overall consolidated margin?
Sunil D’Souza — Managing Director, CEO & Executive Director
So Parsee, for the last five years you’ve been growing sampan at 30% and we maintained the gross margin. The whole trick is to make sure that your portfolio works to your advantage. As I said, we’ve created our portfolio, crafted our portfolio in a manner where a we’ve got a set of businesses which are paying the bills and with a steady state gross margin bar up and down of a US Coffee or a tea happening from time to time but broadly longer term Tea, Salt International, very steady businesses, mid to high single digits and certain gross margin.
There are high top line businesses of RTD and Sampan where the margin is lower but improving consistently. And then there are the growth businesses growing aggressively, smaller businesses but higher, significantly higher margin profiles of capital, Food, Soulful, Organic, India, those. So it is all to make sure that you are balancing top line and bottom line at the same time. So it’s a delicate balance to place if none of My other businesses were growing. It was only some point it will be dilutive but I think over the last five years we have proved that we have the ability to juggle multiple balls at the same time.
percy panthaki — Analyst
Understood sir. And earlier when you said a foods.
Sunil D’Souza — Managing Director, CEO & Executive Director
Business in the longer run should be 17% is that at an EBITDA level.
percy panthaki — Analyst
Or is that at the other calculation that is variable costs and advertising and. But not accounting for fiscal fixed cost.
Sunil D’Souza — Managing Director, CEO & Executive Director
No, no. So I wish I was allowed to deliver businesses of map of only 17 because below that there is at least 12 to 13% of cost coming in. Right. So I can no way deliver EBITDA as required. This is ebitda percentage of 17%. 17 plus is the number.
percy panthaki — Analyst
Got it, Got it sir. Secondly on t just wanted to understand the volume growth of 3% is a little lower than sort of our targets. So what is playing here? Is it sort of competition or is it I mean just a one off. Quarter or what should we read into this?
Sunil D’Souza — Managing Director, CEO & Executive Director
So Parsi, I wouldn’t measure too much into the quarter on quarter for every single category overall year to date we have delivered a 9% top line for also remember last year same quarter we had delivered a 7% volume growth. So we are cycling that. So if you do 7 and 3 we are back to the 4 to 5% volume growth which we have been guiding for so a is the base quarter. Second I would urge not to look at quarter to quarter. There will be ups and downs because at times you will have volume upsides, price downsides and vice versa.
Sometimes a few quarters it does take to settle. But overall India tea about 4 to 5% volume and a couple of basis points of price mix. That’s what we guide for.
percy panthaki — Analyst
Okay sir, that’s all from me. Thanks and all the best.
operator
Thank you. Next question is from Sheila Rati from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.
sheela rathi — Analyst
Yeah, thanks for picking my question. Two questions from me. The first question was with respect to Capital Foods. Sunit just want to hear from you that in 2026 do we have any major plans with respect to scaling that part of our portfolio? And I’ll just add the second question also the second question is overall on the distribution side, you know for the next two years what is the kinds of roadmap we have with respect to our GDM strategy?
Sunil D’Souza — Managing Director, CEO & Executive Director
So on the GTM strategy overall we cover about 1.7 1.8 million outliers directly and numeric reach is about 4.5 million. In the medium term our target is to get to about a 5 million numeric reach. And the reason I’m emphasizing this because direct reach will probably, I would say an aspirational number is about 1.9 to 2 million. I wouldn’t drive beyond that because now we have to get the wholesale multiplier and get into the semi urban rural territory which are our lower share territory. So that’s number one on Capital Foods. Our ambition remains 25 to 30%.
I do think we have started to expand the portfolio through innovation number one. And number two, the new segmented go to to market and supervisory system should drive us there. Apart from that, you would have seen our new ads that we’ve created. This is in the mold of how capital Forbes was built. Making blockbuster ads memorable, which lasts for a long time. So that is the third pillar, just one follow up.
sheela rathi — Analyst
Sunil, is there something which we feel that is.
Sunil D’Souza — Managing Director, CEO & Executive Director
Sorry we missed you in the middle?
sheela rathi — Analyst
Yeah. Is there something which is missing for us to kind of, you know, you know, accelerate the growth part for Capital Food? Is there some, some missing link here which we need to work on right now?
Sunil D’Souza — Managing Director, CEO & Executive Director
I wouldn’t say there is a missing link. There is basically there are two jobs in Capital Foods. There is market share growth in existing categories and there is category creation. For us, the south and east of the country. Capital Foods is a slightly alien thing, right? I mean they have not seen Szechuan chutney, etc. So both advertising and sampling at scale are the critical pieces and we have started accelerating that. We, we’ve upped our, what we call taste ambassadors by roughly 50% over the last, I would say six months or so. And like you seen, pumped up our A and P, including bringing in known faces from the south into the ads so as to relate better to the consumers.
And lastly, like I mentioned, like I’ll give you the example of Calcutta where 91% of the business is tea and salt, 9% is total growth categories. You can imagine how much focus it gets. And therefore the segmented go to market will be a huge unlock because now there is dedicated focus on these categories.
sheela rathi — Analyst
Sorry, 90%. If you could just repeat Asumi.
Sunil D’Souza — Managing Director, CEO & Executive Director
In Calcutta, 91% of the business came from tea and Salt and and 9% from all the growth categories including organic India, Capital foods, Soulful and Sampan. So I mean whether it’s the distributor, whether it is a salesman, whether it is the supervisor, ultimately bread and butter is paid for by tea and salt and therefore the focus is always tea and salt. Now that we’ve separated it out, there is dedicated focus on these growth categories. And that’s where we expect the unlocks.
sheela rathi — Analyst
If I may ask, what is the reverse of that 91:9. I mean which are the markets where we are seeing the fastest growth for our growth categories?
Sunil D’Souza — Managing Director, CEO & Executive Director
So fastest growth for our growth categories across the place. I just gave you an example of Calcutta because that stuck in my mind about what should be done in large metro markets to unlock.
sheela rathi — Analyst
Okay, understood. Thank you.
operator
Thank you. We’ll take our next question from the line of Anurag Dayal from Philip Capital. Please go ahead.
anurag dayaal — Analyst
Yeah. Hi sir. Thank you for the opportunity. So my question is related to RTD portfolio 2. Part of the question one is that we launched the Zip Zap energy drink in previous quarter. How has been the initial reception to it? And secondly there is expectation that summer will be good this year and a lot of beverage companies are now already started to build their channel, increasing VC cooler and all. So where we are in the distribution and how we are planning to, you know, increase our distribution and reach before the summer takes.
Sunil D’Souza — Managing Director, CEO & Executive Director
So let me use a Hindi term because I have stopped trying to forecast the weather right when there are rains in Bombay in November and December and it starts doesn’t rain till around June, July, it’s a very difficult forecast. Right. But that said, you’re absolutely right, seasonality does pick up. I would say probably February onwards is when you would start seeing the uptick. So right now we are, let me say over the last two years we have started to be ahead of the curve. We have ramped up our distribution and we should be in a good position by around end January, early February.
Whether it is salesforce, whether it is distributors, whether it is salesmen because after that the entire focus is on execution. So if it is a good summer we will ride it out. Like you have seen, it’s not a pricing driven growth, it’s a volume driven growth which I feel good about. And we have very, very clearly started to build out the three pillars, the entire water stack right from the 10 rupees bottle of copper water up to the 90100 rupees bottle of Himalayan and the entire range in between. And you will see some more aggressive launches in this space coming in in the next 60 days or so.
We’ve started to build the whole stack of ready to drink tea and coffee. Whether it is green tea, fruit tea, kombucha, ready to drink coffee in a can at 70, we’ve now a pet at 50 and a high end as well. And then of course we’ve got the entire cups portfolio. Zip Zap was Launched middle of last quarter. Fingers crossed. We’re still in a few markets, we want to test it out but before we go broad based but right now more or less to expectations.
anurag dayaal — Analyst
Thank you. So just to follow up on rtd, what is the current reach if you can, how many outlets you reach for rtd?
Sunil D’Souza — Managing Director, CEO & Executive Director
I’ll have to get back to you on the exact number of outlet but it’s broadly in the million outlet ballpark. Right now we will focus on growing our share in this territory before widening the footprint.
anurag dayaal — Analyst
Thank you so much.
operator
Thank you. Next question is from the line of Siddharth Nikandi from Chanakya Wealth Creation. Please go ahead.
sidharth negandhi — Analyst
Thank you for taking my question.
operator
I’m sorry, can you use your handset mode please? Your audio is not very clear.
sidharth negandhi — Analyst
Just give me a minute. Hi, is this clear?
operator
Yes, please go ahead.
sidharth negandhi — Analyst
Hello.
operator
Yes we can hear you. Please go ahead.
sidharth negandhi — Analyst
So moderator perhaps? Yeah, okay. So Sunil and Ashish, there are some questions on the webcast link. I think some of those have been answered which were touching upon the go to market changes which you already explained. There is one more question on the India beverage market share in tea has seen some softness despite revenue growth. To what extent is this a conscious value over share trade off? And how do you internally track success in such situations?
Sunil D’Souza — Managing Director, CEO & Executive Director
I think I have publicly maintained and the good news is now multiple people are saying the same thing. If you read the Economic Times, I think yesterday or day before, just to give you a perspective, last quarter I think about 18.5% of my business came from E Commerce, quick commerce. The last quarter, previous quarter was 21, this quarter it was 18 and a half. Modern trade roughly is in the 1415 ballpark. So that 33, about 5% comes from institutions which is 38. Therefore all of GT is only 60 62% of the business. And in modern trade, remember which Nielsen reports one significant player doesn’t share data.
So at best they are reporting about two thirds of the market in a sampling format. And if you observe market shares ups and downs, I would urge you to listen to commentary from multiple players and then make up your mind about who’s gained share, who’s lost share. We look at because there is no other database available, we report, continue to report Nielsen because otherwise if I don’t report I’ll be accused of trying to hide numbers. So we do report it for what it is worth. And yeah, when my volume growth is still a strong number compared to industry, when total value growth is close to double digits, we feel in a good place I don’t think we are losing market share.
It might move marginally up and down. Just to give you a perspective on Nielsen does measure E Commerce. They don’t report it and don’t total it into this but we are market leaders on E commerce incidentally E Commerce quick commerce as I mentioned quick Commerce has grown 100% so we have about on E commerce we have about 38, 39 share and we are leaders. If I total all that it will be a completely different picture. There are channel shifts which Nielsen doesn’t measure. Where it measures it’s by sampling and like I said in modern trade doesn’t pick up one player.
So your guess is as good as mine.
Meher Shah — Analyst
Thank you Sunil. The next question is on Tada Sampan the question is that is the growth being primarily driven by distribution expansion or are we beginning to see repeat consumption and brand led pull especially in staples like pulses and spices.
Sunil D’Souza — Managing Director, CEO & Executive Director
So let me say my strongest channel for Sampan is E commerce simply because most of the categories that we play in, with all due respect we are also competing with a retailer. Remember when I’m selling a pulses he is scooping up pulses from a 50 kilo bag making a 50% margin on that. Whereas in my company I’d best make a 15% odd sort of margin. So therefore E commerce Quick commerce is the stronger channel for Sampan. And the fact that we are getting this volume traction and this thing just proves that we built brand loyalty and pull.
Just to put it in perspective, even when I do market widgets, etc. Most of the times even the GT retailers who are around, they attest to the fact that once a consumer has picked up Sampan then they hardly go back just because of our stringent adherence to quality norms.
sidharth negandhi — Analyst
Okay, thank you Sunil. There is a question on innovation. It says with innovation remaining strong at 15 launches this quarter, could you share what percentage of revenue now comes from products launched in the last three years and how has this metric evolved?
Sunil D’Souza — Managing Director, CEO & Executive Director
So we’ve launched 15 products this quarter year to date is 55 and we’ve publicly said that we want to be around the 5% plus mark on innovation to sales defined as revenue from products launched in the last three years. We are at a 4.8 at end of last quarter and there’s no reason we will not cross five this year.
sidharth negandhi — Analyst
Thank you. There is one question on how do you see the EU FCA for Tata consumer in the long term? And any update on Tata Starbucks on further store opening in terms of resizing stores and further investment in that business.
Sunil D’Souza — Managing Director, CEO & Executive Director
So EU fta. I will not comment on it because I’m not sure we have all the details on what unfolds, number one. Number two, as we mentioned, our big focus areas in the international markets are uk, us, Canada. EU is there but it is not a very, very significant piece. So I would wait and watch to see how that pans out. On Tata Starbucks we remain bullish on the coffee opportunity in India both in home and out of home. On out of home it is Tata Starbucks we opened. We are now at 504 stores in 81 cities.
We are immensely focused on making sure we constantly tweak our business model to make sure it appeals to to Indian consumers and continue to drive business. As we said, coming from a significant dip in the entire QSR industry over the last 24 months, last 2/4 have been encouraging. We are now in positive same store sales growth. We did temper store openings a bit to ride through the softness and make sure we made the right modifications to enable faster growth going forward. We remain in the middle of that entire exercise, but longer term we do intend to be among the top, if not the top coffee shop in India.
Nidhi Verma — Head of Investor Relations and Corporate Communication
Thank you. Sunil, There is a question from Rohit from By toke, he’s asking how much is quick commerce within this quick E commerce savings of 18 to 20.
Sunil D’Souza — Managing Director, CEO & Executive Director
So quick commerce is about 15. The balance about 4 to 5 would be e Commerce.
Nidhi Verma — Head of Investor Relations and Corporate Communication
I’m just mindful of the time, so maybe I’ll just take one last question from the webcast. Can you clarify the outlook for tea price mix going forward? Given we have given some pricing back to consumers, should we expect some negative price mix for the next few quarters?
Sunil D’Souza — Managing Director, CEO & Executive Director
Yeah, as I said, we’ve given off most of the pricing during this quarter, but I don’t think the entire picture on the pricing has flown through. There would be a little bit of impact of price mix but I wouldn’t say it will be significant enough. But it will be sort of flattish to slightly lower going forward. But as I said as we’ve given off price we expect volume to pick up and as I said we’ve said mid to high single digit revenue growth. At points in time volume will be overpowering versus price growth and vice versa going forward, at least for the short term we expect volume to come back stronger and therefore us continuing to deliver the mid to high single digit revenue top line.
Nidhi Verma — Head of Investor Relations and Corporate Communication
And perhaps one last question before we wrap up. There is a question on international margins whether they are largely back at normative levels or are we likely to get expansion in the fourth quarter.
Sunil D’Souza — Managing Director, CEO & Executive Director
No international margins are not at the normative level simply because the entire impact of the coffee cost increases have not passed through. We’ve had one more round of price increase in the US in the month of January post which we would have broadly passed on the current cost increases but that takes some time to translate into the P and L. So I would say we are about a quarter away from seeing normalized pricing for international. Yeah. So we are at least a quarter off.
Nidhi Verma — Head of Investor Relations and Corporate Communication
Thank you. Thank you so much Prunil and just being mindful of the time I know there are still some pending questions but perhaps you can reach out to us for that. On behalf of the management of Tata Consumer I would like to thank you for joining us today. Thank you.
operator
Thank you. On behalf of Tata Consumer Products Ltd. That concludes this conference. Thank you for joining us and you may now disconnect your lines.