Dairy business, which contributes about 5% to the company’s overall revenue, competes with Amul and Mother Dairy. The company’s dairy franchise includes cheese, milk-based beverages such as shakes and flavoured yogurts, and it is looking to strengthen its consumer franchise in cheese and milk-based drinks through front-end-investments. The annual report said the company also plans to “incubate the ‘fresh business’ through the launch of multiple products such as Greek yogurt and smoothies under the Come Alive brand”. The company said it has manufacturing capabilities for yogurt, processed cheeses and skimmed milk powder, and that it has scaled up milk collection up to a daily 65,000 litres.

It said it is setting up a new dairy plant in the next few months and another three greenfield units, and it hopes to quadruple its turnover from the dairy business over the next five years. Britannia will also focus “disproportionately on e-commerce”, which grew doubled 100%, it said in its annual report. Its power brands include Good Day, Marie Gold, Milk Bikis and Nutrichoice biscuits, and the company highlighted salty snacks as a category of “significant interest”, particularly in healthier formats.

Fast-moving consumer goods companies have been under consistent margin pressures owing to a surge in inflation. While inflation and palm oil have seen sharp corrections on account of geopolitical factors in recent days, prices of packaged goods remain significantly higher than they were a year ago.