BakeryBiz, Mar-Apr, 2021

Taking forward the legacy started by his grandmother, Ishaan Bector, Director, Mrs. Bector’s Food Specialities Ltd., (Cremica) talks to BakeryBiz  about their company plans, the Indian bakery market scenario, and the road ahead

Mrs Bectors has created history at the stock market. How does the management look at this? Are there any further alliances, acquisitions, greenfield projects in the pipeline?

The success achieved during the IPO and listing is a result of constant effort which has been put in by the organization in the last 25 years. The management looks at this accomplishment with pride because it shows the confidence the consumers have in the growth story of the brand.

Our manufacturing facility at Rajpura is further going into expansion with the addition of a cookie manufacturing line. We are also doing significant manufacturing capacity expansion at our Greater Noida plant in Utter Pradesh this year. Going forward we will continue to invest in high-quality infrastructure to sustain high-quality products and high-quality growth to the company.

Currently, there are no acquisitions planned. However, we are always on the lookout for exciting opportunities where there are synergies with our brands.

You have been credited with ensuring continued growth for the bakery segment. What is the current status and future plan?

Sales of products sold under the brand name ‘English Oven’ grew faster than industry between FY15 to FY20. We are constantly improving our products. We are using state of the art machinery; highly skilled people are operating at our plants. Levels of hygiene and food safety standards are extremely high.

We are one of the few bakery companies in India that can handle fresh, chilled, and frozen products which enables the Company to distribute its products across India. We are constantly innovating our supply chain and our sales teams are using technology to make better decisions at the market level.

As systems and processes and product standardization/quality improve, the overall industry will benefit. This is very tough for the unorganized  industry to achieve. The unorganized players still have an unreasonably high market share in the industry. I sense some consolidation there.

Bread business over the last three years has reported a CAGR of 29 percent with last year alone reporting a growth of 40 percent. What according to you is the reason for this consistent growth? Also, what is in store for the future of the segment?

India is a developing market when it comes to bakery consumption habits. The millennials are looking forward to exploring newer eating habits and hence are adopting varied forms of diets. Breads hence become a good option. Bakery or breads are quite a common ingredient to multiple dishes from different parts of the world whether it be a burger, pizza, sandwich, pav or a kulcha. With newer options available to explore, people are now accepting the consumption of breads more rapidly.

We have out beat the industry in  growth by multiples. The key to this has been QUALITY. Customers have shifted to our breads, because they find them fresher, better tasting and clearly see a better value proposition. Affiliation for our brand is also strong. Customers consider our brand to be premium.

We are still a young company. We only have a 5 per cent market share in the industry. Our focus is going to be to increase distribution and improving
market serviceability. When we open a new outlet, we are confident, we have a strong value proposition for consumers to make a switch.

Do you think the Indian market is ready for bread when it comes to being on par with international markets, in terms of baked good variants? Also, your take on consumer trends and market drivers?

Indian Bread Market size was Rs. 5000 crore in FY20. In most European countries the bread industry has reached stagnancy. The premium bread
industry in India is expected to grow at about 15 per cent. We are still at an incredibly young stage in terms of category evolution. We will continue
to see growth by increased consumption and value addition in India.

In terms of quality, standardization, hygiene, best practices, we at English Oven are already at par with European standards. Our breads are made from technology and equipment, the same as is being used in Europe.

In terms of innovation, the premium or value-added category is still niche. We are slowly introducing newer products. The newest being Paninis, Footlongs and centerfilled buns. The acceptance has been good. We have solid plans to introduce new products on an ongoing basis. Shortly, we will be at par with international markets in product offerings.

Direct-to-consumer (D2C) brands have started to come up providing value-added products directly to the consumers. The ability to reach directly to the consumer will be key. Our industry suffers from the problems of ‘high returns’. Made to order, D2C are going to be key for introducing value-added products.

The bakery market globally is growing due to the development of new technologies related to freezing. Against this background what is your  considered view on Frozen Bakery products from an Indian scenario, present status, impediments and future impact as a plug and play growth/scale-up option.

Frozen food products, which earlier were, only limited to Ice Cream, Peas, French Fries or meats have now started experiencing a surge in the demand from all categories. Though still quite nascent in the bakery business, factors such as an increasing number of nuclear families, availability of easy snacking options round the year, exposure to global cuisines and scarcity of time for cooking are primarily fuelling demand for complete food solutions

We at English Oven envisage to drive the solution for anytime hunger and satiate the never-ending food demands of our customers.

Frozen allows you to deliver not just a loaf of bread but a complete sandwich to a consumer. Through frozen you get benefits of extended supply chain reach, product innovation (complete meals), preservative-free, better shelf life. Frozen product range could have options for a complete meal, a light snack or even a dessert. This is the future.

Health and immunity seems to be the buzzwords in the present. How do your products measure up on the health index ?

Healthier products and alternatives top the demand list for all generations. With an increase in consumption, consumers prefer baked goods that are ‘guilt-free’ and are increasingly seeking products made with healthier ingredients such as multigrain and whole-wheat for ‘Natural Nutrition’. The growth in the market is also highest in the health segments.

Our range of healthy breads like Brown, Multigrain and 100 per cent Whole Wheat are a perfect fit for these growing needs. We will continue to  explore options to push boundaries to further improve the health quotient in breads.

Is it a good idea to promote bread consumption in a country like India which predominantly is into nonyeasted products?

Definitely! Breads are a convenience food. They are easily available in the market and extremely easy to create a quick meal at home. You don’t even
have to heat them if you don’t want to. Breads have become an important alternative for the urban and rural consumer.

The organized QSR market is expected to grow at a CAGR of 23 per cent to reach Rs. 524bn by FY25. That says a lot about how bullish the industry prospects are. With an increase in disposable income and changing consumer habits, the bread industry is surely envisioned to grow at a fast pace.

How conscious are Ms. Bector’s towards the consumption of additives and chemicals in baked products?

The Ethos of our brand is Quality. We strictly follow the “no added colors or flavors” policy with all our products. We have a fully functional lab to test
and verify all ingredients before they go into making our products. Further, all our products are quality certified from authorized labs. We are also
working on preservative-free optionsfor our consumers.

We have received several quality certifications and accreditations, including certification from the FSSC 22000, the U.S. Food and Drugs Administration, British Retail Consortium (BRC) and Sedex Members Ethical Trade Audit (SMETA).

What are the future plans for expansion and growth of your organisation? Is there any plan for a retail market entry through a branded deli chain in the near future?

No, currently there are no plans to enter through deli chains. We still have a long way to grow in terms of distribution and market reach. We would like to make our premium and value-added products available through our distribution of 17,000+ outlets, which we are focused on increasing monthly. We will further strengthen our presence in our existing markets, we will also be adding infrastructure to open up 2 new geographies in the next 2 years.

Any new product line which your organisation is getting into?

Recently we have introduced new products such as sub breads, pizzas, garlic breads, cheese garlic bun fills, and frozen cookies for our retail as well as institutional customers. We are evaluating setting up a frozen supply chain. We will continue to push the boundaries in innovation and bring more value-added products to our product portfolio.

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Who we are?

We are one of the leading companies in the premium and mid-premium biscuits segment and the premium bakery segment in North India, according to the Technopak Report. We manufacture and market a range of our biscuits such as cookies, creams, crackers, digestives and glucose under our flagship brand ‘Mrs. Bector’s Cremica’. We also manufacture and market bakery products in savoury and sweet categories which include breads, buns, pizza bases and cakes under our brand ‘English Oven’. We supply our products to retail consumers in 26 states within India, as well as to reputed institutional customers with pan-India presence and to 64 countries across six continents during the Financial Year ended March 31, 2020. According to Technopak Report, ‘Mrs. Bector’s Cremica’ is one of the leading biscuit brands in the premium and mid-premium segment in Punjab, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh and ‘English Oven’ is one of the largest selling brands in the premium bakery segment in Delhi NCR, Mumbai and Bengaluru. We are the largest supplier of buns in India to reputed QSR chains such as Burger King India Limited, Connaught Plaza Restaurants Private Limited, Hardcastle Restaurants Private Limited, and Yum! Restaurants (India) Private Limited (Source: Technopak Report).

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Brief History

Mrs Bector started her journey as an entrepreneur with the catering business. With the popularity of her products, she started catering to thousands of weddings and corporate events in Ludhiana, Jalandhar, Amritsar, Ambala, Delhi, Dehradun, and Saharanpur..

As her passion for cooking grew, she signed up for short-term vocational courses at the Punjab Agricultural University (PAU) including a dairy technology course to learn ice-cream making. Her business (of ice-cream manufacturing and baking) at the time started gathering traction by the mid-1980s and she kept adding to her production capabilities in Punjab. Today, the biscuit-and-bakery firm started in her home kitchen in Ludhiana, Punjab, has reached sales of INR 763 crores in FY 20 and recently also accomplished a `541-crore blockbuster initial public offer (IPO) on the bourses (BSE and NSE) which was oversubscribed by 198 times.

Production capacity

• Over 1,00,000 MT of Biscuits
• 85 Mn packs of Bread and Bakery products
• 434 Mn packs of Buns
• 12 Mn packs of Frozen Products

Workforce

• We have over 1650 personnel employed at our manufacturing units.
• Another 1000+ employees in other departments across all locations.

Number of SKUs

• Biscuits category consists of 384 SKUs
• Bakery segment consists of 118 SKUs.

Number of retail outlets

• where products are available nationwide
• Cremica – 557,000
• English Oven – 17,000+

Global export markets and figures

• Exports to 64 countries
• Supply to reputed retail chains, distributors and buying houses.
• About 12 per cent share of the total exports CY19 of biscuits from India.

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________