 Hello and welcome to the Pride of India show. Our guest today is Aditya Bagri, Director of Bagri Group, India's leading breakfast cereal brand. Aditya is striving to take the three-year-old company to the next level. Welcome to the show, Aditya. Thank you so much, Kanchan. Thank you so much for having me on the show on the platform. Aditya, please take us through the initial journey of Bagris. So Bagris was a business that started out of pure passion. So as a food processing group, we've been in the business of grain-milling and food processing for over 50 years. The family has been enrolled for many years in the space of flour-milling and grain-milling. And that's the origin of our journey with food processing. So my father who started our media group was someone who started his own module journey at a very early age. He set up his first flour-milling units at the age of 19 and got involved in the business very, very early and subsequently built a successful B2B business where we were giving tailor-made ingredients out to various multinational companies. And once he established that, he was very passionate to put something of his own on the shelf. And he was also cognizant of the fact that flour-milling was predominantly selling Mehta, which is, as we all know, is unhealthy. And Mahatma Gandhi spoke very strongly on the nutritive values of the outer layer of the B-frame, which is the brand. So he wanted to do something with brand and try and make it fit for human consumption because it always went as a scattle fee because it was unstable. So with a lot of experiments, he was able to stabilize B2B and that was our first retail product. And the idea was to build a modern day consumer startup as we see today. The idea was to put something very honest and something that we were very passionate about around nutrition on the shelf and eventually build out something which we cannot be proud of. So the early days of the journey was pure passion. We did not view it from a business lens. We started with products like Weed Brand and many consumers wrote back to us saying that it actually made a difference to their lives. So whether it helped them lose weight or get their digestion in order or they felt a lot better and those responses were very heart-warming. That was really our motivation to continue innovating. So we started innovating by creating categories such as oats and loosely introducing them in India at a time that you didn't have access to the internet or the kind of supply chains that exist today. And so we managed to do it fairly indigenously and kept on innovating. We were the first people to actually launch nutrition bars in the country also back in 1998, which is a category which was way before time. So the idea was to keep on innovating to try and build something which is healthy way ahead of its time, whether it's worked in the West, whether it's something that is required for the Indian consumer. We put it in a palette where it is acceptable to an Indian consumer. And in the early 2000s, we pivoted from what was our passion to a proper FMCG business, dedicated the right team for it, made sure that we expand capacities, put up a state of the art facility in March, which does most of our breakfast and eventually put a FMCG lens to it. And the B2B business exists and the FMCG business, which is the vertical that I look after is a pure play consumer business right now. And over the years, we've done many innovations. And the idea was to always challenge the status for what we believe is right for a category and put it out to our consumers. And fortunately, we've built decades of trust in the brand. And that's what consumers have valued, the trust, the quality. And in fact, it's largely perceived to be an international brand because of the quality and the kind of work we've done in the category. So very exciting journey so far and very exciting times ahead as well. Over the years, how did you connect with your consumers? I mean, word of mouth, supply chain innovations and advertisements. Yes. So the initial years, I'd say the early couple of decades was more of the first two points that you mentioned. Predominantly word of mouth. So I think there's lots of effort on putting the product on the shelf. Consumers tried it. They liked it. They referred it to other people. We reached out to the influencers of the 90s, which included nutritionists and doctors in a physical manner, gave them a lot of reading material, a lot of literature that was created, which included technical papers to explain the health benefits. And we also participated in a lot of events. So we had a heart event in Delhi or in other events in Bombay or the trade fairs. So I think the idea was that at the time in the 90s, the optionities to market beyond mass media were limited. And since we were starting out, we looked at every retail optionity which we could do. We sampled the product. So there was lots of below the line outreach that we did. But predominantly, I would say the largest equity we got was by creating a sincere and honest product, which consumers tried and they referred it to other people and it grew organically by word of mouth from person to person to shell to shell. And it was a very slow gradual increase that we saw. The other big innovations we did was one of the key innovations on supply chain, which we did was packaging. So which I think we are extremely proud of. So Oats globally and breakfast cereal globally is sold in the form of either pouches or boxes. And we were the first people, the best of our knowledge to introduce Oats in a pet jar, which turned out to be a game changer. So we got pet jars from a brand which is very popular in the 90s called Perlpet. And instead of putting it in tins, we packed the Oats in a pet jar. That itself became such a motivator for home makers to actually try and consume the Oats because they got a Perlpet pet jar free along with it that it completely pivoted the initial trial generation process. And once obviously people got into the habit of consuming Oats, it was a regular repeat process. But globally, I think we were one of the first few brands to actually putting cereal in a jar. And that's an innovation that I'm proud to say that lots of our colleagues, which are multinationalists, followed when they entered it. Whereas, and it's gone beyond India as well. So that's something we did on the supply chain side. And obviously, as things evolved, we had also done print. We also did lots of PR outreach to try and reach out to the right influences. The market was still very small to do mass media at that stage. And even the supply chain was limited. So most of our effort was actually below the line at the point of sale to try and sample the product out, make people try the habit, because I would lose to try and explain what made Barberies unique, which was why would you have Oats? Why would you have these categories that we were pioneering in. And today, I mean, you go to a shelter, very distinct categories with no fairs retail. So earlier it used to be all clubbed in one small breakfast cereal line. So I think as things evolved, our approach has been constantly changing today to acquire a customer. It's very different. You go right from digital advertising to again, the point of sale kind of work. So some of the basics don't change, which is point of sale and sampling. But obviously, the other mediums of where consumers are understanding what your brand is, is evolving constantly. But the early days was also the supply chain all below the line work to try and build it. And I think that was very exciting. And it's also a patient exercise. It doesn't happen overnight because you have to acquire each customer at the time. Can you please tell us about your most popular campaigns in recent years and which ad agency do you work with? So a lot of the creative throughput that we have is actually now in-house. So we have designers and creatives in-house. So we are working with specialized agencies for packaging, for influencer marketing, for media mind. But majority of the creative input is now through our in-house marketing team. And that's where a lot of modern day brands are evolving, which have significant amount of presence on digital because the sheer amount of output that you need to generate is significant. But from every campaign, we work with different agencies, all thorough professions. We put a board which has so many seasoned FMCG people on top who worked on much larger campaigns and at much larger scales. So I'm grateful to have their input on whatever work we're doing in terms of communication as well. But just to give an example, some of the more recent campaigns we've done, a campaign on Newsyly back in 2017, which was the first time that we went with the whole outdoor cab advertising media, along with print and along with airlines. We put a productive Indigo Airlines, we'd actually put our Newsyly branding all over the Meru and Ola cabs and that actually took off fairly well. So that was a campaign we'd done with a boutique agency which has some senior creators and that was received very well. And the idea was to actually generate awareness around the mutual category. Since then, the category has taken off quite significantly. And in more recent times, most of the work which we've been doing has been very digital, very point of sale oriented. So it might be on a certain e-commerce platform, whether we're putting in communication or on platforms such as Google and Facebook. But they have become micro campaigns because the refresh rate is so high that we have to change creatives every 10 or 15 days. That's what consumer acquisitions come to. But from a pure grand generation piece, that was quite well received. And the only TVC we've done is in the state of south in Kerala, where we actually did an Oats campaign quite some time back where we did that in Malayalam. So we have the only time that we go on mass media and TV is in the market, which was very well band rated for us, which was Kerala. And we did a Malayalam TVC. What was exciting for us was that it was a very high quality campaign done with a great production team at a shoestring budget. But the campaign's resonance is still there today. The fact that people recognize that TVC, even though it's been a decade, is something that we value quite a bit. And now, obviously, the brand is also world, our approach is also world. So I think future campaigns, which we're seeing are very different from what we do in the past. And now the confines of above the line and below the line are merged a bit. It's all about acquiring a customer and customer lifetime value and the kind of data points that are available to us right now vis-a-vis what we could see earlier in terms of offline and mass media are very different. So I think the approach has become a lot more scientific. And the idea is now to actually create a whole range of new products and educate consumers and get new consumers to try us, because we sincerely believe we make a good product. Consumers who try us often come back to us and there's a very high repeat rate. So we're focusing on a new customer acquisition in a way that is sustained. And for that, I think point of sale is again very important, which we're dialing up now that the pandemic's settled. Digital awareness is very important on platform platforms, which again, we're dialing up. So today if you open a platform like Blinkit, you'll probably see communication from Barglies across various categories. So we're very, very clear about where we want to acquire our customers. And many of them can choose to buy the product online first, but they might go back to offline to purchase it. So that's what we're going with. How much is your ad expenditure today compared to what it was before pandemic? So today it's actually, I mean, without sharing absolute numbers, I would say because before the pandemic we'd hardly spent money on advertising in a consistent way. So today, I would say it's at least about five to six times more than what it was before the pandemic. That's also because we're looking at digital as a medium, far more strongly consistently. Whereas earlier, it was time to time awareness based campaign in which you'd spend in advertising and most of your budget would go below the line on trade and other activations. So it's actually dialed up fairly significantly. And I think our advertising expenditure would be about five to six times of what it was pre-pandemic in terms of what we were spending on a regular basis. And we're looking to spend a fairly consistent amount going forward as well. So I'm more excited about what we're going to do rather than what we've done so far as well as well as advertising. Because there's lots of innovations that we've come up with over recent years which we want to communicate for. Who do you see as your biggest competitor and do you feel that you are making a dent in their revenues? So overall, I'd say that our journey is unique. So firstly, we are not the organization which would say that XYZR are the competitors and we need to work on making a dent in their revenues. We are here to grow our revenues and more importantly, grow our customer base. And again, it's a business built out of passion. So we have a longer term vision to build one of India's most trusted health food brands. And in order to do that, our vision doesn't stop at breakfast cereals. We are a booty quotes in Newsy brand. Today, we are a complete breakfast cereal brand. And going forward, we want to be a complete health foods play. So from that perspective, we are trying to craft our own unique journey because every product in our piece is highly differentiated on health and nutrition. So even say for example, something as simple as the conflicts we make is very innovative in comparison to what the average is in the market. So I think from that point of view, we are very uniquely positioned. But of course, we are operating in a category which is a breakfast cereal, which is dominated by a handful of multinational and large Indian companies. So we do have to operate in that ensure that we are taking our due measures to get the right category shared that we deserve. And I think we've been the largest homegrown brand in the space. So from that perspective, I'm sure that I don't know if you're making a dent in their revenues, but I'm sure that it's something that is taking notice. But our journey is still a long way to go. So we're just getting started in terms of what we want to achieve with the brand. And from that perspective, early responses on how we've started tracking category share, we started tracking growth has been very encouraging. And as we expand our portfolio as we've gone into more and more categories, I'm sure we are the only brand which has the pan India footprint, as well as a complete plain all breakfast cereal categories, which includes mostly in all categories that we find it, as well as kid's cereals and cornflakes, which are categories that we've created something different. And from that perspective, we have a complete bouquet of breakfast cereals. So very few brands have that. And more importantly, in an innovative manner, that not just me too. So from that point of view, we've been very, very clear that we want to grow in the category, we want to grow beyond the categories. And today we have a lot of products which are talking more about general health and wellness or specific health and wellness, which get us into avenues of healthy snacking, healthy super foods, which go way beyond breakfast and into almost a crossover between nutrition and food. So a lot of what we're doing now is very research driven, very opportunity driven and doesn't just stop at breakfast. Because we realize that consumers are having our products beyond breakfast as well. So there's acceptance for the brand. There's not a breakfast cereal brand. Consumers are viewing us as health first. And that's what our motor has been for 20 years. Our tagline has been let's put health first. So we've gone with it and tried to create a truly honest, health food brand. You spoke about various products in categories. What do you learn long term plans? So for a long term plan, like I mentioned, our vision is to build India's most trusted brand for health. So we want to take this brand. We started out with the boutique, the ports, and mostly we made it into a complete breakfast cereal brand. We're consolidating and there are lots of innovations that we planned in breakfast cereals to give examples. We recently launched NOLA, which is a very well accepted product, very high quality product with one flavor being benjandar, chocolate, almonds, and the other one being exotic fruits and nuts. There's a very high quantum fruits and nuts in it. In our core categories, such as mostly we were actually the innovators to bring out India's first protein-based muesli. So whey protein muesli. We're the first people to actually use whey protein with breakfast cereal, which globally very few brands had attempted till then. So that was an innovation that we did and we were quite proud of. One innovation we did in the conflict space, I think, has also been one of those global firsts where we identified that conflicts are not healthy. They are actually not good for you in terms of nutrition from a fiber and a glycemic index standpoint. They give you a blood sugar spike whenever you have conflicts. And in order to address that, we actually infused fiber into the flake in the form of prebiotic fibers, which reduce the GI of the conflict. And we actually managed to stabilize the flake without adding any artificial antioxidants. So most brands actually had BHA, which is INS320, which is an artificial antioxidant. We managed to stabilize it with natural antioxidants, yet give consumers a taste experience, which is almost identical to what their regular conflicts are and they're used to. So that's a category where we've taken significant share, at least in the organized medium. And we just, I would say, getting started there. So that's been exciting. We managed to create a kid range also, recently, where most of the kid's cereals today have had a combination of mehda and very high content of flavors and sugars. So completely natural kid's cereal with 0% mehda and made with three grains of oats, wheat, and rice. And nothing artificial at all. So a much better alternative. But for the child, the taste experiences is very sacrosanct. So we've not compromised in the taste, but we've significantly dialed up the health. So that was an innovation, again, that was very exciting. And obviously, from an extension of the health foods range, in the healthy snacking segment, we've not flavored nutanas, which has been very well received. We were one of the early brands to do it. And we've stuck to our vans, like we want to do a high quality flavored nutana because the market was proliferated with a bunch of players, but we want to keep our quality consistent. And we rolled out that storm of having so many players on the shelf. But that's been well accepted. Then we've gone into healthy superfoods in the form of organic quinoa, chia, a whole range of seeds such as sunflower flags, watermelon. We've also explored the nut butters category because it's an extension of breakfast into breakfast spreads. So we've got peanut butter, which is without any added sugar or artificial stabilizers and pure peanut butter of a very high grade of peanut. And we've actually, just before the pandemic, we've worked on a category called apple cider vinegar, which is a healthy tonic. So our first foray into the almost nutraceutical segment where it's something that you can consume when you wake up first thing in the morning. So there's a very strong connect to the branch from a health standpoint. And that was extremely well received because it has immunity boosting benefits. So as soon as the pandemic hit, we saw that apple cider vinegar wasn't just coming from online shelf, it started moving from rural shelves as well. And that's something that we work on very well. And we kept it in a glass bottle, which is the right way in our approach to store it. So lots of innovations and lots more in store actually that we're working on in categories where we are trying to do something different and innovate. So now we're eyeing larger categories where we can take a small niche share, but it has to be innovative. It doesn't need to be a me too in terms of what we do because our old grand pillars are just health, very high quality manufacturing, innovation in terms of doing something disrupted in the category and years of consumer trust, which puts us in a very different light than say a modern day startup or a large multinational for that matter. But the approach is to always do it clean, do it with the consumer's health first. When we develop a product, we don't think of whether it makes commercial sense, we think of whether it's the best product we can make and then we figure out we can make it commercially viable. So that approach is always in my view personally, the recipe to create better products. Thanks for talking with us, Aditya. Thank you very much. Thank you so much Kanchan. Thank you so much for coming here for the show and we look forward to interacting with you.