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Ladies and gentlemen, good day, and welcome to Tata Consumer Q4 FY '21 Earnings Conference Call hosted by ICICI Securities Limited. [Operator Instructions] Please note that this conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to Mr. Manoj Menon, Head of Research from ICICI Securities Limited. Thank you, and over to you, sir.
Hi, everyone. it's our absolute pleasure at ICICI to host Tata Consumer management for the 4Q FY '21 results conference call. Without much ado, I would just hand over to Ms. Nidhi Verma from Tata Consumer for further proceedings. Stay safe.
Thanks, Manoj. Good evening, everybody. Hope you and your loved ones are all safe and keeping well in these trying times. For today's call, I'm joined by Mr. Sunil D'souza, Managing Director and CEO; Mr. L. Krishna Kumar, Executive Director and Group CFO; Mr. Ajit Krishnakumar, COO; and Mr. Rakesh Sony, Global Head, Strategy and M&A. For today's call, we'll spend about 20 minutes, taking you through some of the key updates. And then we'll open the floor for Q&A. Over to you, Sunil.
Thanks, Nidhi. So Rakesh, if you can move the slide. Now this time around, I think we have staggered the analyst call to make sure that everyone gets a copy of the deck, the numbers. And thereby, we spend more time discussing the details and answering questions. So in that light, I will run through some of the highlights very quickly and then we'll come down to Q&A. If I come to the executive summary for this quarter and in effect, what is for the full year, the India business top line accelerated for this quarter, as you would have seen the numbers, while the International business was soft due to primarily cycling pantry loading in the base quarter. Our EBITDA growth for the quarter was impacted by the inflation in India and increased A&P investment. That was more than offset the strong EBITDA growth in India Foods and International business. During the year, our consolidated revenue grew 20%. Group net profit was up 102%. We added about INR 2,000 crores to the top line this year. Overall, the India business grew 29%, with India Beverages up 12% on volume and India Foods up 11% on volume. International business, excluding foodservice, and the reason why we say excluding foodservice is because we have now divested most of our foodservice businesses, grew 12% with an underlying constant currency growth of 5%. Consolidated EBITDA for the year is also up 20%, with strong margin expansion in International and India Foods. India Beverages faced margin pressure due to unprecedented inflation in raw tea prices. We have strong free cash flow conversion. FCF to EBITDA was up to 101% versus 81% from the last year. We've gained market share in both core categories of tea and salt for the full year, and our share gain continues to accelerate. India business integration is now complete. We have done the basic foundation work and now we need to start building on that. And we will continue to build on S&D infrastructure, digital, A&P promotions and innovation. In line with our strategic priority of exploring new opportunities, we acquired the RTD business of NourishCo early in the year, and we also expanded our foods portfolio through the acquisition of Soulfull, which is now, we've renamed it into Tata Soulfull. We've rationalized our International business, and we've exited coffee business in Australia and in the U.S. As on date, we have no loss-making international businesses on our portfolio, as we speak. Next slide, Rakesh. Yes. For Q4, the highlights are India Beverages volume growth of 23%, India Foods 21%, U.S. coffee was negative 2% in line with cycling the pantry loading. International tea was negative 7%. Foodservice, this is just for this quarter alone because, as I said, we divested it at the end of the quarter of March '21. Tata Coffee was up 31%. Overall, we've generated INR 3,037 crores of revenue. On a constant basis, 24% growth; including ForEx, 26%. Next page. And for the full year, INR 11,600 crores of consolidated, 18% underlying; 20% including ForEx. Strong revenue growth across businesses, India, 12%; India Foods 11%; U.S. coffee 7. International tea grew 1% and Tata Coffee grew 9%. Next slide, Rakesh. Overall group performance for the quarter. INR 3,037 crores. EBITDA of INR 317 crores, PBT INR 262 crores. Group net profit, INR 74 crores. And net cash generation -- net cash, sorry, of INR 2,421 crores. 26% growth in revenue, 1% on EBITDA, primarily driven by India Beverages and to a small extent, International. PBT up 6%. Group net profit up 161%. Margin, we did see a dip in margins for this quarter, 260 basis points in EBITDA, which flowed through to the PBT, negative 170. But group net profit, primarily driven by the fact that we had write-offs last year same quarter, was up by 750 basis points. Overall, EPS of INR 0.58, which was up 170% year-on-year. Next slide, Rakesh. So for the full year, INR 11,600 crores of revenue, up 20%; INR 1,569 crores of EBITDA, up 20%; INR 1,342 crores of PBT, up 24%; and group net profit, INR 930 crores, up 102%. So in effect, you are seeing flow through despite the pressures that we faced on tea prices through the year. Margins, more or less there. No significant movements, whether it is EBITDA, PBT was slightly up. Group net profit, in line with the quarter and full year, up 320, 86% growth on EPS year-on-year. Next slide, Rakesh. Yes. Just take a minute or 2 talking about the strategic priorities, which we have detailed, accelerate -- strengthening and accelerating core, driving digital and innovation to jump shift our capabilities, unlocking synergies and focus on costs, creating a future-ready organization, which can deliver into the future. Exploring new opportunities, both organic and inorganic, while ensuring that our sustainability credentials keep going from strength to strength. So on expanding our reach, we are now at about 2.4 million outlets in terms of total reach. Numeric as measured by Nielsen, which is up 15% for tea and up 11% for salt. We had made a commitment of doubling our direct reach in 12 months and doubling numeric reach in 36 months. So while I did talk about numeric reach up by 20% for the year, on direct coverage, we are up by 30%. And we are on track to deliver our commitment of 1 million outlets by September 2021. We have started expanding our rural, which was the last phase of the integrated S&D system. We had already deployed the 3x TSOs on the field. And we are up by about 2,000 rural distributors. E-commerce, the other big point that we wanted to drive, we've more than doubled our contribution as a percentage of sales. Exit for March was about 6%. So we continue to accelerate even beyond these numbers. And all this is primarily the result of having very focused S&D system. We've got dedicated teams for e-commerce, modern trade, institution and GT, which is focused on execution, while the strategizing and planning is done by the shopper marketing team, so working in tandem, we are delivering numbers. And all this stuff has shown results because on tea, we are up by 190 basis points quarter versus same quarter last year. And on salt, we are up by 160 basis points for the same quarter year-on-year. Modern trade is up 31%, and e-commerce is up 130% year-on-year. So you are seeing the actual results of all the integrated work that has gone in over the last 12 months. Next slide. We had committed to start powering up our brands. We've upped that A&P by about 18% for the quarter. And put money behind our brands, Kanan Devan had a relaunch during the quarter. On the left-hand bottom, if you look at it, we've started accelerating our game on coffee. And coffee, again, we are seeing acceleration every quarter as we move forward. On the right-hand bottom, in line with our hyperlocal campaigns, you see the activation on Tata Tea Premium. And right hand top is where we have started to power up our Agni brand, which primarily plays in the mass segment, distribution, pricing in place, and now we are starting to fire up A&P behind it. Next slide. Salt, again, we have put money behind base salt, which is the picture that you see in the middle. But more than that, we've also focused -- as I'd mentioned in earlier calls, we are focusing on opportunities below Tata Salt as well as the premium opportunities above Tata Salt base brand. The premium salt is now growing about 70% in the quarter, so efforts bearing fruit. Tata Sampann on the right, you would see us very, very active, and you will see that activation starting to increase. Right hand bottom, we see opportunity for share gain in very specific regional markets. And now we are adapting our TVCs to regional as we focus on both execution as well as giving air cover to the brand in those specific geographies. Broadly, driving premiumization was the other theme across. On beverages, you would see our new launches in line with that, whether it is relaunch of Tetley with Vitamin C; Tulsi Green which was launched and is now being scaled up across the country. We had done a pilot for Tata Tea Gold Care in very specific cities in the south. Having seen success, now we are rolling it out nationally. On foods, again, salt, premium salt, I talked about the 75% growth. And during the quarter, we have launched 2 brands on our direct-to-consumer model, Tata Coffee Sonnets, which is both on a B2C website as well as listed on Amazon. And at the end of the quarter, we launched Tata Tea 1868, which is a range of gourmet tea, the finest, and we will now start expanding this. Next slide. The other point that I would want to make is all the efforts that you're seeing on whether it's on distribution, innovation, A&P are starting to show preliminary results. We have shown a distinct difference in trajectory, both in beverages and foods in India. So on beverages, you would see us, the last 3 years CAGR was 7.1%, and I'm talking volume, not value. Because I do realize there has been a lot of pricing actions this year, and that's why I'm talking of base volume. We have almost gone up on our run rate by 50%. India Foods, similarly, from a 3.4% CAGR, we have gone to 11.4%. Next slide, Rakesh. Digital transformation is the next piece that I wanted to talk about. So we have done the basic plumbing work, if I may, putting up the distributor management system and sales force automation, 100% of our distributors are now online on both these tools. We have gone live with S/4HANA, which is our base ERP system. We've got a new CDO on board. And now we will get down to work on making sure we are leveraging all these tools, firing them up with analytics, et cetera, to make sure that we deliver improved sales outcomes, lowering cost to serve, working capital, service levels and lowering supply chain costs. Innovation, which is the other big story. You would see innovation across all our different businesses out here. On the left-hand top, you will see the foods innovations. We launched thin poha, extended our poha range to a thin poha. This quarter launched the Haldi Doodh for the quarter and expanded our range of nutrimixes. On beverages, we had a range of products. I already talked about Tetley, Gold Care and Tulsi Green. In addition, Quick Chai, which is our ready-to-make instant tea, if I may. We had piloted this, saw good response, and now we're expanding this nationally. On the right-hand top, you'll see launches from the international businesses, starting with the British Blends in the U.S., the specialty teas in Canada, the Good Earth launch that we've done in the U.K., which we have done as an exclusive only in Sainsbury's, and now we are expanding it to other outlets. We've expanded that into Kombucha, which you see out there and taken the range extension into Australia. Apart from that, Fruski was the brand that we've relaunched, if you may, in the NourishCo system. It is -- we've given it a whole new avatar and a whole new set of flavors. Good response in the pilot markets of Hyderabad and Vijaywada, which we'll now expand across the system. Ajit, can I ask you to talk about the business integration update.
Sure, Sunil. So I think ever since the merger was announced, so merger closed in February of last year, we've been giving regular updates in terms of how this is going. This will be the last such update because the process is substantially complete. Sunil has alluded to various actions, various outcomes of the integration process. I think I'll refer to them very briefly here. I think organization had changeover towards S&D, probably the most significant in terms of volume of actions, we've seen the impact of that in the previous page. But other areas of the company have also been transformed, including unlocking synergies in the India supply chain and the digital point that Sunil just mentioned. I think the critical point from your perspective is that we have started realizing the synergies that we thought we would. When we announced the transaction in May of 2019, we said that we would generate approximately INR 100 crores to INR 150 crores of EBIT level synergies in 18 to 24 months. We are currently realizing between INR 5 crores and INR 7 crores of monthly run rate cost synergies alone, excluding revenue and related synergies in the combined and upgraded India distribution, which means that we remain on track to deliver what we promised that we would deliver, probably a little bit ahead of schedule, probably at or above the upper end of the range that we promised 2 years ago. If you can move to the next page, Rakesh. The other thing that we have also learned well as part of the integration is to -- of the integration of the TCP business is to integrate new acquisitions relatively quickly. For Soulfull, we were able to start billing to the TCPL system within 45 days, and we are on track to complete the synergies -- the integration within about 90, 100 days. It might slip a little bit based on COVID, but we are broadly on track. The target is to go from Q2 to increase the number of outlooks by 3x and integrate the innovation process into our asset innovation model, that is very much on track. I can hand back to Sunil for the next slide there.
Thanks. Then if I can talk about the other big pillar of capitalizing on organic and inorganic. Organic we've talked about already. And on inorganic, there were 2 big pieces that we did for the year. One was NourishCo, which is a platform for significant growth for the future with portfolio and geographic expansion. And Soulfull, which, again, we see a great fit -- strategic fit for us, both from a health and wellness portfolio, from a consumer occasions or a categories play. We've got integration on track and well on our way. Next is in terms of a future-ready organization, we are focused on 4 big pillars. We had integrated org structure, identified capabilities which we needed to build, muscles which we needed to build very quickly. Harmonized systems and processes across the organization and build a purpose-led organization. Some glimpses of this at the bottom. We've now got a flatter and more focused R&D structure and resources. 3 distinct verticals in the R&D team, clearly focused on new product development, scientific, regulatory affairs and strategic projects. Shopper marketing, which is the strategy and planning piece behind the entire sales execution. We built out our e-commerce vertical, and you've seen the results there, and that is the result of bringing in talent specialized on e-commerce. Ajit talked about the integration management office, which is to create a repeatable model where we can absorb and move on any integration -- any acquisitions that we do. We have the new CDO on board, and we'll now detail the organization below and focus on the digital aspects going forward. Revenue management is a muscle which we did not have. We've just recruited people on board. And now we will start moving on revenue management, which can add to the top line. And we've got a dedicated investor relations person, so that we are focused on answering all your queries. Continued focus on sustainability. We are part of climate change management. We have participated in the circular economy, plastics recycling, et cetera. We are focused on water management through various pieces in our businesses. Sustainable sourcing remains a high priority. And we have put out our GRI sustainability report. Next slide, Rakesh? Very quickly, I will not comment too much about the GDP growth rates because especially for India, that keeps moving as a forecast. But overall, in perspective, while the developed markets are starting to trend positively on GDP growth, India is still negative, but expected to rebound quickly, bar the 60, 90 days or whatever it takes for this phase to move on. I'll just spend a bit on the commodity price trend on tea. While you would see the tea prices trending downwards from Q2 coming down and down in Q4, 2 or 3 salient points I'd like to highlight out here, that INR 158 per kilo is still about 50% above the same quarter for last year. So that's point number one. While it has been coming down, it is still 50% above where it was the same quarter last year. The second point that is there is we carry about 60 to 90 days of inventory in our system. And therefore, for the tea prices to start seeping into our systems and translating into margins, it takes about that much time. That said, as the new crop comes in, we do expect to see some moderation of the tea prices as we go forward. And therefore, the entire pressure on margins in the India tea business because of the tea prices should start alleviating. If we don't see this moderation happening, through this last -- more of last 2 quarters, if I may, we've taken graduated price increases to walk the thin line between volume, margin and momentum. We will continue to look at those as an option to make sure that by FY '22, our margins come back on track on India Beverages. Coffee prices, we are seeing a bit of uptick, on the right, and that bodes well for our subsidiary Tata Coffee. Next slide, Rakesh. Next slide. Very quickly to run you through snapshots of very specific businesses, India Beverages, and here I'm talking full year numbers, and I'll give you also a snapshot of Q4. India Beverages, I talked about 12% volume growth, 32% revenue. But most importantly, 100 basis points of share gain, which are ahead of almost all branded competitors in the market for the full year as well as for Q4. So we are gaining share in line with our execution. For the quarter alone, 23% volume growth and revenue up 53%. Margins impacted because of inflation, but we've continued running A&P to make sure that we are well positioned for the future as we go ahead. The biggest news out here is working capital of the business is at 48 days versus 78 days of last year despite pricing on inventory, which has gone up led by raw tea inflation. Next slide, Rakesh. On the food business, 11% volume, 18% revenue, 180 basis points of share gain. And we continue to maintain that share gain momentum as we move ahead. Salt revenue grew 26% for the quarter, overall bringing the full year up to 17%. Tata Sampann was a bit slow in this quarter, but that was a conscious decision because of the volatility of especially the pulses pricing out there, given what was happening in the macro environment. But overall, for the full year, we've grown 26%. Next slide, Rakesh. NourishCo, revenue up by 4%, INR 188 crore of full year revenue. And if you look at the left-hand top graph, as the economy opened up, NourishCo has delivered stellar results. Yes, we will see a little bit of impact with this wave 2, but we do expect to see NourishCo on a stronger and stronger footing as we go ahead. Next slide, Rakesh. Tata Coffee, overall, 24% plantations, 12% revenue -- extractions revenue growth. Overall revenue growth of 14%. Overall extraction grew by 12%, led by Vietnam, which is now running close to a 95%, 97% utilization. On plantations, we had value growth in tea, and coffee plantations also grew on the back of a higher crop this year. Next slide. Tata Starbucks. We continue to invest for the future, and the business continued to execute to the tee. So if you look at it, February -- March is an aberration because they're cycling on almost a week, 10 days of lockdown. But for Feb, we had come to a 98% year-on-year. Same stores, about 90%. So very strong execution by the team. Now we're in 18 cities, 221 stores, and 94% of stores were operating. That said, that has changed as the country has gone into lockdown in various locations. We have continued to add stores, as we said, because we are focused on the longer term. So we have added 39 new stores and 7 new cities through the year. Next slide. U.K. 2% revenue, but the good news was we put all our 3 brands together now. We've created one front-end for Tetley, Good Earth and Teapigs. Teapigs has performed very well during the year, and we expect to accelerate this as we go forward. And we more or less held on to our share in the U.K. during the year. Revenue for the quarter declined 10% owing to pantry stock up, which was not unexpected. Next slide. U.S., overall growth of 9% on coffee, 16% on tea, which is very good results. We more or less held on our share on coffee bags. For the quarter, revenue grew by 3% constant currency due to pantry loading in the base quarter. Next slide, Rakesh. Canada's star performer for us, 15% revenue growth, 35% growth in specialty tea. As we have maintained, our opportunity in the international markets is to accelerate our play in specialty and fruit and herbals. All the businesses are doing it. But Canada, the reason we've called it out because we are now in touching the sense of market leadership, even on specialty and fruits and herbals by volume terms. Canada also has moved up its market share slightly during the year, and that's a big call out. Even for the quarter, revenue grew 6% despite a high base that saw pantry loading last year. And we do think this business will go from strength to strength. Next slide, Rakesh. LK, can I request you to take the financials?
Yes. Thanks, Sunil, and good evening, everyone. So I'll talk through the highlights for the quarter. I'll start with the consolidated revenue of INR 3,037 crore, up by 26%. It was strong performance by India Beverages, which grew by 60%, but over 20% in volume. India Foods by about 22%. We also had non-branded business growing by 20% in the quarter. International business, excluding foodservice grew by 3%, but as Sunil mentioned earlier, in the same period in the previous year, we had stocking up because of COVID. So overall, a very strong quarter of volume growth and value growth and the implications of the sales transformation and the benefits are flowing through. As far as the operating profit is concerned, up by INR 5 crores, INR 312 crores to INR 317 crores. Again, a function of the increase in material cost in India and also some additional investments on A&P and also some onetime costs as well as restructuring and capability building costs. I'll talk about it more specifically in the next slide. Talking about performance on a stand-alone basis. Let's go back for a minute. Stand-alone turnover INR 1,850 crores compared to INR 1,335 crores, increase of 39%, largely reflects the growth in the India Foods and Beverage businesses. Operating profit lower because of the costs in the investment. So moving on to the next slide. If you take a look at the performance for the quarter, I'm not going to repeat the numbers, but coming straight to the EBIT margin, 8.3% versus 10.3%. There is the impact of commodity costs. But if you look at the SEBI format, you'll find that actually the commodity costs have been slightly better than the earlier quarter. But there has been increase in employee costs as well as other expenses. A combination of investing in people for capacity and capability building. There are some onetime redundancy costs as well as in other expenses, there are costs of integration, in some cases double running as we restructure the organization. We don't expect these costs to continue quarter-on-quarter. But just wanted to draw your attention and to preempt any questions in that area. Overall, net profit of INR 74 crores, which is a strong quarter. Going to the consolidated results for the full year, 20% increase in revenues. EBIT margin, 11.3% compared to 11.1%, notwithstanding the tea cost increase in India. We have improved operating margins during the year because of strong performance by the foods business and also by the International business. So group net profit, INR 930 crores, higher by 102%. There is no separate line we're showing here on the profit from JVs and associates, but you will see that in the SEBI format. The changes that are taking place there are strong performance by the tea businesses, the North India and South India plantations because of higher tea cost and good crop in the case of South India, but adversely impacted by Starbucks because of the underlying trend in out-of-home business. Moving on to the next slide. We'll skip this. We've talked about the stand-alone performance. Just a comment on the segment performance. If you look at India Beverages, this is for the full year, increase of 36%. Segment results up by 7%, impact of higher A&P spend and more pronounced increase in tea cost. India Foods, 18% growth in revenue, but a 46% growth in results, driven by improved mix and driven also by cost measures. International beverages had a good start to the year and also had the benefit of good cost control. So overall, 8% revenue growth and 27% growth in segment results. Nonbranded business came up with a 15% revenue growth and a 63% growth in profits. So it's been a year of strong performance. In terms of proportion of different elements of businesses, India Beverages 42% -- 44% of revenues, 23% India Foods and 33% with International Beverages. In terms of the segment EBITDA, India Beverages 37%, slightly lower than the normal. India Foods 29%, and International Beverages 34%. So with that, I'm going to hand it back to Sunil.
Yes. Thanks, LK. So in terms of the outlook, right now, the second wave is creating a bit of uncertainty. We are seeing sporadic lockdowns across the country, more or less. We are also seeing, unlike last time around, a more widespread infection rate and impact on people in supply chain and sales. Right now, as we said, we've made sure that we have covered our entire frontline, whether it is in the sales or in our 3P, factories or even our packaging centers. We've covered everyone with COVID insurance. On top of that, we are paying for vaccinations across the whole supply chain and sales network. But coming out of this is going to be critical, 60, 90 days, I'm not very sure. But we are making sure that we are staying close to the ground as we come out of this. On the international markets, we're seeing the completely different picture. As the current pace of vaccination improves, the outlook there is more optimistic. Out-of-home is beginning to open up, and people are beginning to move around. So that's the good news. On the business side, as I said, the safety and well-being of our employees and business partners continues to be our top priority. We are making sure that we are following or we are ramping up COVID protocol in all our factory locations, et cetera. Our offices and sales force are work-from-home as we speak. We are taking a call on that every 15 days by geography to make sure we're not putting people in harm's way unnecessarily. With regional and lockdowns, I think the very critical piece is the irritations on the supply chain as people get impacted, transport gets impacted. We've got to make sure we stay nimble-footed. Tea inflation in India, I talked about, is expected to moderate with the new crop. Just wanted to add that we will -- we had a very easy option during this quarter of taking up prices, and therefore, making sure the margins look healthy. But if you step back and look at it from a strategic viewpoint, I think market share is more important to maintain because getting that back is -- will turn out to be much more expensive. Given where we are, we feel confident of executing. And given the fact that we are seeing tea prices moderate, we opted to stay the course and continue to build our distribution and power up our brands with A&P. And we will continue to drive competitive volume growth. Just a point that I would like to make out here is that it is not that we have bought market share. It is -- we have -- in fact, price indices have narrowed with regard to competition, if I may. If anything, it is execution and brands which have powered our market share during the year and the quarter, with ongoing distribution expansion and our accelerating funnel on new product development. Our funnel is significantly higher going into this year than what it was coming into the last year and the increased A&P plans because as we drive innovation and drive execution in the field with distribution, we need to give extra air cover for the brand, and that's what brings about a stronger business. We do expect momentum in India business will continue. Integration of Soulfull and consequent distribution gains, just to highlight, Soulfull was present in 15,000 outlets. Our total numeric reach is now up to about 2.4 million, 2.5 million outlets. So as we expand distribution, we do see disproportionate growth out of that business. International business started lapping COVID-induced pantry loading starting, I would say, March for some businesses and April for some. We will see a bit of pressure on that for probably another 15, 20 days or so. But our focus will be to continue our expansion beyond black tea and deliver total growth. So that brings me, I think, to the end of the presentation. Nidhi, back to you.
Thanks, Sunil. So perhaps we can open up the floor for Q&A. We'll first take the questions from the call, and then we can go to the webcast. So over to you -- to moderator, please.
[Operator Instructions] The first question is from the line of Jaykumar Doshi from Kotak Securities.
26% growth in salt and 23% volume growth for tea, both are quite impressive. Just want to understand that does this quarter capture full benefit of S&D integration? Or should we expect more in the coming quarters? I'm aware that you are expanding your distribution, so there will be benefits associated with it. And associated in salt, who are you gaining market share from? Because if I understand correctly, you have about 60%, 70% market share in the organized salt space already. So that is first question. I have one more, but I'll wait for this.
Yes. So thanks for the question. So I would say that you will see strong double-digit growth continue across both the portfolios as we move forward. As I said, we started our integration journey in September. And by the time we bolted on the distributors, organized them and got common field force, et cetera, was sometime about January. We are now focused on outlet addition, and that will continue to give us good growth. Apart from the fact that rural is an entirely new journey. And we've got a long way to go out there. So distribution expansion and thereby volume growth, that is one piece that will continue to happen. The second piece is the whole innovation and building brands or building brand power as we go through the year. That is the other piece that we would expect to continue to see growth. So do we see growth -- strong growth continuing? We do. To your second question of salt per se. Remember, we are about 30, 35 share points on salt in the total salt market. Now salt, there is a decent portion, which is big brands. There are about 4, 5 brands, which are, I would say, mid-single-digit share per se. But then there is a large tail below that of largely local, unorganized players. So as we are expanding our distribution, as we are powering up our brands, as we are expanding our portfolio in salt, we are seeing share gains coming out of -- small portion coming out of the other big branded players, and big is a relative number, like I just mentioned. But we are seeing significant gains coming out of other local and organized. And again, this is not across the country because in some geographies, even if you look at total salt, we are at a 50%, 60% share per se. So it's going to be difficult to climb share in those geographies. But we have geographies in the country, which are still low double digits, some high single digit share. So we are laser focused geography by geography, going after very specific markets with the entire marketing mix to make sure we're getting share out there.
Very helpful. And second one, if I may. On Tata Sampann, you started the year with 55%, 60% growth. But then subsequently, during the course of the next 3 quarters, it has decelerated. And I'm aware about volatility in pulses in 4Q. But what should be the normalized growth expectations from that business? We were earlier thinking 50%, 60% growth on the current base is easily achievable.
So let me just take that question. I think Sampann, and I have maintained this earlier, has got a huge runway. I have earlier made the statement that it is our diamond in the rough. We just need to polish it a bit, and it will yield fantastic results. So you're absolutely right. Sampann growth should be significantly ahead of our total growth, if not total foods growth per se. So that is the intent. It is just that in Q3 and Q4, and I alluded to macro outside issues where there was huge amount of volatility as there were specific interventions in the commodity markets, which prompted this volatility. Now we want to be a big branded player, converting from unbranded to branded. We don't want to play the trading game and playing around with inventories moving up and down. So that's why we took probably a step back. But that said, probably the biggest focus that you will see for this year in the foods business, because the salt formula is more or less proven now, you've seen that in the volume and the revenue results which has come in. I think you will see the Sampann formula getting fine-tuned and executed as you move ahead. So you could see significant acceleration from here on.
Next question is from the line of Arnab Mitra from Crédit Suisse.
My first question was on the India tea margins. You did explain the lag effects of 60 to 90 days of inventory. But I'm still finding it actually very hard to understand with the commodity having peaked 6 months back and coming down and you've also hired prices in the middle, why the bottom of the margin seems to have come in the 4Q. So if you could just help understand this kind of a lag despite the pricing going up. And secondly, related question is that if we, as you rightly said, assume that the commodity doesn't fall for whatever reason, is there a path to get back to the pre-commodity rise margins? Or at these levels of commodity, it's very hard to fully pass on the prices, even if they were to sustain here at these levels?
So thanks, Arnab. So let me answer your question in 2 or 3 different parts, right? Now, we do expect a question on India Beverages, what is happening. So if I just take a step back and if you look at, a, have we delivered solid volume growth across food and beverage, we have, right? So then if you peel back for the full year, and you look at the P&L and you look at the different lines, and LK talked about it. But including all those elements which are moving, if you take out raw material costs and if you take out A&P, there is about 300 basis points of improvement in costs on the P&L lines over the full year. Now therefore, if I come back to this quarter, so is it then an execution issue? Now we have combined sales and distribution system for food and beverage. So it can't be that we executed well for foods and not for beverages. And that shows because the food business has delivered very strong volume and value, and the beverage business has delivered strong volume. So therefore, the issue is only of a very specific pricing behind tea. Now I did make a statement, we have not bought share during the quarter. And we have gained share, which means we've executed better than other players in the market. So one is this whole inventory piece that is coming into the picture. The second piece is not all the costs have got translated into consumer price. Remember, it's a competitive market out there, and we will stay competitively positioned in the market. We will not let our brands become uncompetitive. So a significant portion -- or a decent portion of the price increases have not got passed on to the consumer. And that is where you see the impact. That said, I think now everyone is expecting tea price to moderate. If tea prices do not moderate, I did make a statement saying we've taken graduated price increases in line with the way the industry has moved, and we will continue to take those graduated price increases. Objective is to get back to the margins pre this entire hyperinflation of tea, if I may call it. LK, would you want to add anything?
No. I think you've covered ground. I think what is important to note is, again, I would say that the platform is getting ready and it will come back. It's also going to address some of other questions, right? Synergies have started to be realized. There's more that will happen next year in terms of run rate. And we still believe that overall growth opportunities for Sampann and Soulfull are pretty significant, right? And when you think of Sampann, don't think only pulses is the only additional statement I'd make, right? We have a vision for Sampann, which is way beyond pulses, and there are many other innovation and products that you will see over time. So I would -- we'd only urge you to look at it from a medium-term perspective.
Thanks, Sunil, for the detailed response. My second question was just on salt. So the volume growths, obviously, are very strong. I was actually under an impression that there is a constraint on how much volume growth we can deliver in salt due to the production constraints of Tata Chemicals at their end, but you seem to be obviously delivering high volume growth, much more than the 8%, 9% CAGR that we thought is a constraint. So is there a constraint on production? Or if the demand is there, if the distribution is expanding, we could actually overshoot that kind of a product constraint that I think -- I thought that was there?
So on salt, remember, we play with Tata Salt, which comes out of Tata Chemicals, and then we also have various other variants coming out of solar salt. So it's a mix of both. Solar Salt it is up to us to go out and make sure that we secure supplies year-on-year. And the team is, I think, doing a good job on that. On Tata Chemicals itself, we're working very closely with them because we give them regular forecast on where we think we are headed. And believe me, we are quite in line with the bullishness that you see out here on the stages. And their capacity is coming online as quickly as we want it. So while you do see -- if you do the math for today, there might be a capacity constraint that you could see. But Tata Chemicals is adding capacity in line with our growth ambitions.
The next question is from the line of Tejash Shah from Spark Capital.
Sir, first question is on tea market share gain, which you have mentioned. So you and market leader both have registered market share gains in the quarter. So is this market share gain coming from regional organized players or unorganized or both are ceding market share to national players?
You're absolutely right, Tejash. I mean both us and the other player in the market, both are gaining market share. Both of us are gaining in some local and regional players. Just the point that I would like to make is on an NAV basis, I think we have gained about 100 basis points. I know they're significantly -- they've also gained but significantly lower. On a quarter-on-quarter, we've gained 190 basis points, and I know they have gained significantly lower. So both of us are gaining, but we are gaining far ahead of them from the regionals and locals.
Fair enough. Sir, second, you spoke about tea prices coming down. But globally, several agree and otherwise, commodities are also showing strong inflationary trends. And hypothetically, if tea prices have to follow the trend again, then how should we think about this margin versus market share dynamics playing out in the coming year?
So I would just give you some dynamics on the tea market. The reason why the tea hyperinflation happened is because primarily during the lockdown in the early part of the year and then inclement weather in the month of July, August, the tea production in India was significantly lower. And what has happened through the year is because of this shortage, it's been a hand to mouth game, and that's why tea prices went up. But starting September, October, when the production started catching up with the same levels of the year before, I think you saw the moderation happening. I do think as the new crop comes in, if all goes well, then the new crop will be good. In the initial phases, there will be some inventory building. But overall, I think you would see tea price moderating. But as I mentioned, if we don't see tea price -- tea crop come up and therefore, tea prices moderate, we will start seeing graduated price increases. Tejash, ultimately I do think everyone will be rational and start moving up prices to make sure margins are in line with what the expectations are.
Sir, just last one on supply chain. So we have just, I believe, completed this digital transformation supply chain project with Blue Yonder and Accenture. So how should we see -- as an analyst, how should we just see this surfacing in financials? Would it be in margins, working capital because working capital improvement is very much visible? Or is it too ambitious to think on that line at this point?
So Tejash, you will see that impact in 4 or 5 different metrics as we move forward. Number one is for the top line per se, I think a good supply chain gives you good fill rates and fill rates will translate into increased top line growth. So even if I closed about 4% or 5% gap on fill rate, I think it will translate to about 0.5% to 1% on top line. That's the reason why we are now monitoring our OTIFs very, very closely. And if we move up our OTIF line, we know that the top line will go up because there's better availability in the market. That's one on the top line. On the back end, and the bottom line, I think it is primarily a function of making sure we hold inventories very tight, and therefore, the whole translation into cash and the bottom line. Now you have seen our focus on inventories. Our total working capital days has moved from -- as a company from 59 to 42, and you've seen the India Beverage move from 78 to 48, which is a significant expansion. We do think there is still more opportunity to grow there, but we need a laser pointed focus on that, and that is where the whole IDP project comes in. Apart from that, making sure that our efficiencies at our plant, et cetera, ramped up in line with what the sales system wants, that is the other big piece, which you will start seeing flowing to the bottom line per se. LK, would want to add anything more?
No, I think we've just implemented IDP. So there is a lot of scope for optimization from where we are, right? So -- and that benefits have not fully been realized. And even on the receivable front, while we made some changes, I think there is further opportunity from where we are. The third lever is, again, vendor financing and channel financing, which we started out, but I think there is scope from where we are to do more. So all levers are there, but the big unlock still can happen in inventory because it's the early stages of implementing. And we are also building digital capabilities -- not building, but increasing our digital capabilities on the tea front, right, in terms of optimizing both cost and, obviously, also working capital impact. So that will give us some further benefit.
And Tejash, if I can just add to what LK said. I think -- and this is a statement that I've made. Our plumbing is in place on the digital piece, whether it is DMS, SFA, IDP, everything, the plumbing is in place. But now leveraging that, translating into analytics and building that to action, we are just about, I would say, very, very early days. I think we've got a long way to go, and you will start seeing those results coming.
Manoj, if you can take one question from the webcast. Manoj?
Sure, Rakesh, you can go ahead and read it.
Yes. So there is a question from [ Deepika Pachori ]. And the question is, there has been a drought in Assam and the crop loss for April is about 30%. What do you see the tea pricing going forward since the effect of this drought leading to low crop will be felt in May and June as well.
So let me answer that. Right now, I think late April, early May, we did see a bit of drought-like conditions in the north. But the expectation is that this month onward, the crop should normalize. The resultant of these drought-like conditions was that the tea prices have remained in a narrow band from where they ended in Q4, but we do expect that the crop normalization should happen pretty quickly and the prices should start moving down. But like I said, this is expectation, but we will make sure that we fine tune our movement depending on what happens on the crop prices finally.
We're not sure that it will extend into May and June, as mentioned. So I think that's the difference.
The other question is from [ Harshil Setia ]. And the question is, with the integration now being complete, what kind of EBITDA margins for the India business can be expected in long term?
So let me just leave you with, we are targeting for double-digit top line growth, very strong focus on costs, especially with the synergies, et cetera, starting to flow through and that flow through coming into the EBITDA and the PBT line.
Over to you, Nidhi.
Okay. Moderator, can we go back to the Q&A from the call? [Operator Instructions]
Next question is from the line of Chanchal Khandelwal from Aditya Birla Capital.
Firstly, congrats Sunil on good set of numbers and good delivery and market share and top line growth, both in the tea and salt business. Sunil, my question is on the Tata Sampann and the pulses part of it. Now I know the team is geared to build this business over longer term. But if I were to step, what are the -- what is the right to win of Tata in this? And what are the strategic steps we are taking or choosing to scale this business?
So thanks, Chanchal. I think in the pulses space, I think, number one is, we're walking into an opportunity of a INR 1,50,000 crore market, which is significantly unbranded. That's number one. Number two, the Tata brand very clearly brings in trust. Number three is, we've chosen a specific differentiated way to play, which is unpolished pulses. Number four is, we are working on more differentiated players in the pulses space. I would just say watch this space. The team is currently working on it, and we should be coming out with things pretty soon. Number five is, as we get scale, we will build our strength at the back end, and therefore, drive procurement synergies and by the way, we're the only brand in pulses nationally with a strong S&D system, the ability to reach a wide range of outlets, and that will be the other big driver for us.
Sure, Sunil, I hear you, the TAM looks very good, INR 1,50,000 crore market. But apparently as I see Reliance putting some corporates, who are building up the retail business. The price differential may be the reason consumers may get attracted to them. So are we saying that we will build up our organic and give some differentiation where consumers will pay us? Or are we also looking to do value-added food, which will give us right to win over longer term? I'm just trying to think out what are the reasons consumers will keep on coming back to Tata. One is the brand for sure. It drives more trust than any other brand, but I'm just trying to say within deeper reasons for me to keep on buying pulses regularly from Tata?
Yes. You're absolutely right, Chanchal. That's why I mentioned one is the Tata brand name, but we've also got to look at it consumer inwards, right? So we have to make sure that the products that we have out there in the market is something which the consumer values and is willing to pay the differential out there. Work in process with the team. And like I said, as we come out with products, we will be unveiling that.
Sure. Just one more thing. On the BigBasket, if you -- if I can ask here, if this is the right platform, Tata has completed that acquisition. How will that add up to the entire Tata Global or Tata Consumer story?
So the BigBasket acquisition is at Tata Sons. It's a group initiative. It doesn't fall under Tata Consumer. That is a retail business. We are a consumer-focused business. But what it does is within the group, it gives us opportunity to leverage synergies and work closely to make sure we have win-win situations for both of us.
The next question is from the line of Percy Panthaki from IIFL.
A couple of questions from me. Firstly, on pulses, the quarter has been affected because of volatility in prices. Could you please explain that a little bit more. I'm a little unsure as to why volatility in prices should affect sales growth. It can affect margins, that I understand. But why should sales growth for a brand be affected by price volatility? And secondly, on the tea business, while you are approximately a 20% national market share, that is, of course, not uniform throughout the states. So if you could just throw light on which are your weak market share states and what is your focus in terms of growth, if you could prioritize, let's say, 4 or 5 states where you think that a bulk of the growth or very fast growth can come from in the next 2 to 3 years?
So thanks, Percy. Now specifically answering your tea question first. There are very specific states in which -- which are big tea markets, either by volume or by profit. I think we have segmented that and decided where to go after with what marketing mix. For example, the mix that we will employ in a volume but no profit market or low profit market will be different from a high profit, lower volume market. So I would just leave it at that. But each of our brands has been tagged by specific geography, and they are playing to that formula. And that is one of the reasons you are seeing the volume growth come up. Now on the pulses piece, Percy, the critical piece is, it's not a high margin -- very high margin business per se. It's a very high volume opportunity at a decent margin today. But as we build the business over a period of time, I'm sure we can build a high-volume and a decent margin business, a decent to high-margin business. The critical thing is when there is very high price volatility, you do not want to be caught on the wrong end of your inventory. And I am not a fan of building businesses which go into negative margins. So when we saw those specific scenarios happen during end of Q3, early Q4, we decided to take a step back. We did not move our pricing down in line with what was -- or this thing, go on aggressively chasing after volumes at very, very, very low margins. We -- therefore, we took a bit of foot off the accelerator, if I may. Ultimately, businesses have to be sustainable, have to be profitable for the longer term. And you would probably see that action coming through if we see too much volatility happening in the space. That said, I think what we saw in Q3, Q4 was, like I said, it was a one-off, which we don't expect to see repeating. And that's why we remain confident of delivering the Sampann trajectory as we move ahead.
Right. Just one small clarification. This 23% growth in tea. Is there any pantry upstocking or trade upstocking impact in that 23%?
So Percy, we finished our distribution integration in December, more or less, December, January, we had all our distributors lined up and done. So therefore, this is not the result of channel loading or a pantry loading per se. This is, I would say, broad-based impact of distribution gains in actual outlets per se, and a bit of share in the same outlet. That said, will that 23% continue, I would think it will probably taper down, but a decent double-digit growth is what we could expect to see from the India Beverage business as we go ahead.
In volume terms?
I would say, volume and value.
The next question is from the line of Sumant Kumar from Motilal Oswal.
Yes. My question is regarding Fruski. So we have launched in Hyderabad and Vizag, and we are going to launch pan-India. So can you discuss about the opportunity side and growth plan for this brand?
So with Fruski, we are taking a differentiated approach in the, I would say, ethnic/hybrid juices per se. So these are all indianized juice variants and the whole theme is the street drinks, if I may. So there is a twist on every single product that is out there in the market. In consumer research, it has fared very well in the research that we have done, both products as well as concept. So on a limited capacity that we had, we did this pilot launch in Hyderabad and Vizag. And yes, the second wave of COVID has sort of slowed our progress down. Because the out-of-home businesses have got impacted significantly with the lockdowns. But as the out-of-home business opens up, we remain confident that this is a business with legs. So remember, we are building a base distribution system in NourishCo with the 2 brands that we have -- or rather 3 brands that we have of Gluco Plus, Water Plus and Himalayan. And therefore, the distribution platform is already there. As long as the product is differentiated, right priced and appealing to the consumer, yes, we do think that we can build momentum in this category.
The last question is, the employee cost in this quarter was higher. So is there any onetime cost?
So LK, can I request you to take that?
Yes. On the quarter, I just mentioned, right? There is onetime cost, but there is also cost to do with both capacity and capability, I thought is what I said, right? So we have some new hires. And we have actually expanded the distribution as we increased pace of innovation and we are expanding capacity. So there are people, but revenue will not necessarily come in the same quarter in which we add people, right? So that's the way to look at it. And there is also an element of Soulfull coming into the system in the fourth quarter. And like we're doing, we are also adding a little bit of distribution for the liquids business, right? So those costs are also showing up. But you're seeing volume growth, and you will see that continue.
The next question is from the line of Alok from AMBIT Capital.
Congrats on the stellar top line growth and the market share gains. I had one clarificatory question to Percy's question. So when we say on volatility in prices, does it explicitly mean that the placements in the market, we will throw it down if you are not able to manage the margins. If that be the case, what would be the long-term back-end sourcing arrangement in this product range? That is number one. And number two would be, in light of the increase in coffee prices, so while, of course, it is good for Tata Coffee, but can you give us some color on its impact on the pricing and margin for the Eight O'Clock coffee business?
So I'll let LK comment about that thing. Eight O'Clock. Yes.
Let me comment. Yes. So I think it's good for Tata Coffee, and as far as Eight O'Clock is concerned, I think, reasonably helps. So it will see -- while there would be some impact, I think we have a fair amount of increase in this.
Okay.
Yes. And to your question on pulses, so I think I made that statement earlier. I'm a fan of growing volume at decent margin and then building up margins later on, but I'm not a fan of losing money and growing volume. So when you see this sharp spikes happen, which you know are not logical and cannot continue, therefore, then I would not go around trying to micromanage on the margins, prices, up, down, et cetera. So I would rather hold margins at a thin line and let volumes grow. That is what happened in this past sort of more or less 1.5 quarter, if I may. Like I said, this was intervention and macros that we didn't expect to see, and I don't think we can expect to see going forward. And I would not go into detail beyond this. But going forward, since we don't expect this to happen again, we do think we can deliver strong numbers in Sampann.
The next question is from the line of [ Avinash Singh ] from [ Mashreq Capital ].
I just wanted to ask you regarding the dividend. So this year you have declared a lower dividend as compared to the previous year?
LK, would you want to take that?
Sorry, can you repeat the question, please?
It was regarding the dividend. Actually, this year you have declared a lower dividend as compared to the previous year. Is there any reason behind that?
We have declared a lower dividend? Sorry, but we have increased dividend by 50% compared to last year. The dividend is 405% compared to 270%. And notwithstanding -- so I don't know what is the question?
Okay. Sorry about that, sir. And the second question was related to the working capital. So do you think -- do you see that this working capital is sustainable in the longer term? Or are you planning to invest more in the working capital going forward?
Of course, there will be -- obviously, when we are growing, there will be increase in working capital. But I think like we mentioned earlier, that we just implemented an operations and supply chain management system. And we are just starting our journey on digitization, right? So in absolute rupees crores, because the business is going up, working capital will go up. But our effort is to bring down the number of days of working capital through various initiatives.
Yes. And if I can just add to what LK said, I think the correct way of looking at working capital in a significant growth business is number of days of sales. And that is the metric we should track. And like I said, as a total, we've moved from 59 down to 42, and there is still opportunity to move it down, and we will continue to do that. Now the other piece that I would want you to remember is our focus on cash. As I mentioned, free cash flow to EBITDA percentage was 101% this year versus 81% last year. So we remain extremely focused on making sure that all avenues are tightened completely to make sure the cash flow generation remains strong in the business.
The next question is from the line of Sanjeev Mohta from B&K Securities.
Just one small clarification type of question. What you are seeing in the modern trade, especially you've seen Future Group was a very large player having problem. And now with COVID wave 2, I think modern trade is further impacted. Does that give you any kind of disadvantage over, let's say, unbranded players? And could that be one of the reason why Sampann is slightly -- the growth has been indifferent?
See, I wouldn't try to second-guess various pieces because remember 2 things. Number one is, modern trade is about 8% to 10% of the portfolio for us overall. And I'm talking about all beverages and foods put together. And it has come under severe stress through the year. So it is not that it was 1 quarter, 2 quarters, et cetera, et cetera. And we've delivered a Sampann growth of 26% for the year, it is just very specific quarters that it has got impacted. So it's not that modern trade came back -- or was fantastic in Q1 and was down in Q4. In fact, it was completely the reverse. So if anything, if your theory holds true, then we should have delivered solid Sampann growth in Q4 rather than Q1. So that's one piece. The second piece I would want to point out is the opportunity for expansion of distribution. Sampann, both pulses, spices and nutrimixes is significantly underleveraged in the overall GT distribution system and very, very huge opportunity for us to grow the distribution there. We have just started on our journey, I would say, in about the end of Q3, early Q4, once we got the integrated system in place. And I would say, yes, are we playing at a premium to the locals or even the local store brands? We are. But even at a small share per outlet, we can grow volumes very significantly. And that is the focus of the team. We are now moving to making sure availability is a big metric for Sampann, which should start driving up the volumes.
Just one small point to add to that in the short-term is that the modern trade while we lost, everybody -- e-com is gaining, right? And so far as e-com becomes bigger and bigger, and our share in e-com is also growing. So -- and we are at an advantage compared to smaller players because of our supply chain and efficiencies and being able to meet the challenge.
Moderator, can we take just 2 more questions, please?
The next question is from the line of Viraj from Securities Investment Management.
I just have 2 questions. One is on the synergies, what I understood you said is, we expect we are realizing around INR 5 crore to INR 7 crore per month of synergies and that we expect to accelerate. So correct if I heard it wrong. Just a question on that is, as we go into, I mean, FY '22, would we be looking to kind of reinvest the bulk of that synergies in terms of investments behind the brands? Or we would kind of look to retain within the company. That's one. And second is on the pulses part of the business. So when you say the India Foods business, if you can just share what the kind of growth rate has been of pulses and ex pulses in Q4 FY '21? The reason why I'm asking is, the kind of price volatility you mentioned. 2, 3 years back we've seen similar kind of volatility and there was a government intervention as well, and we made some corrections in terms of business model and channel approach. So what changes you are now making which can lead to a more sustainable part in our growth? And any growth color you can see on the ex pulses business?
Sorry, I missed the first part of your question. Can you just repeat it?
So on the synergy part, you said INR 5 crores to INR 7 crores.
Okay, okay. So let me say, these are 2 distinct pieces. Realizing synergies is a must do because we've brought 2 businesses together. And if there are synergies to be had, we should not leave them on the table. So we have taken synergies off the table, and therefore, we have set a target for the business. That is part number one. Part number two is, irrespective of the synergies, you presented a business plan to the Board. And like I said, we need to invest in expanding our distribution. We need to invest in innovation, and we need to invest in powering up our brand. So for all these 3, we provided enough of fuel as we move into FY '22. And we do remain confident of delivering, like I said, double-digit top line, very strong control on costs and the flow-through coming down to EBITDA and therefore, the bottom line. So that, irrespective of synergies or not, we will deliver good results and synergies are on track, like Ajit mentioned, on track or slightly ahead of track, both on timing as well as the quantum. That is one piece. Specific with regards to your pulses question. I think the issue 3 years back which you are alluding to, if I understand right, is slightly different to what it is today. Three years back, the prices movements up and down on pricing had caught us a bit unawares on inventory and the spikes had impacted the business. We are moving from that system into a much more structured distribution system that we have put in place today. And therefore, the chances of us being caught on the wrong foot are minimal today. So the only -- the thing is, what are the calls that we're taking at a central level on where we are seeing the price movements grow and what are the impact -- what is the impact that it will have on the margins and the bottom line, unlike last time where it was a bit of scattered decision-making all over the place which had caught us slightly flat footed. So I don't think that it's comparable. This time, like I said, interventions, et cetera, we saw movements up and down. If it is one directional, we can take a view and move up, but when you see this rapid movements up and down, you're not very sure where it is landing and what is happening. And that is why we have stayed out.
And any color you can provide ex of pulses, what kind of growth rates we have seen? I mean, it's still a low base, but just to have some color.
I think we've given the salt numbers separately, and we've given you the full year Sampann growth numbers, right?
The next question is from the line of Sheela Rathi from Morgan Stanley.
I have 2 questions, both are linked. My first question is with respect to the market share gains in the tea business, so if you could just tell us which are the markets where you have actually gained market share? And the second bit is given there are issues with the regional players, do you think there are -- there is an opportunity for any kind of acquisition like you had done in FY '20 with respect to Dhunseri. So these are my 2 questions.
So number one, with regard to market share gains, like I said, we have plotted each state, if I may, and within states, we have plotted clusters about -- and each of them, we've labeled out is it a volume opportunity or a profit opportunity. There are markets in the country where we are lower share and the profitability of the market is high. So we're going aggressively behind that. There are markets in the country where the profitability is decent, but it's a high-volume opportunity. We're going behind that. There are markets where there is volume, but there is no profit opportunity, we have probably stopped peddling on that piece. So it's a mix and match scenario. And we have gained almost across geographies. But let me leave you with this, gained more in more profitable geographies per se. So that's number one on tea. Number two, on the very specific question about acquisition of locals, regionals, I'm not ruling it out. But remember, as now Tata Consumer Products per se, we have a whole different opportunity space, if I may. And therefore, every M&A opportunity, which comes along has to be evaluated with, is this the best use of money. First, the M&A opportunity has to pass the strategic and financial filters. But after that, remember, there are multiple opportunities, which are juggling at any point of time. Even right now, as we speak, there are 4 or 5 points on discussion. There are -- 95% of what we've seen, we've let it pass. But when these come up, we have to weigh them up against, which is the best use of money from a company perspective. We are acutely aware of the fact that we have goodwill sitting on our books for acquisitions made, et cetera. So as we go into acquisitions, we've got to make sure that they're ROCE accretive or transformative to the company. That is what we're focused on. So therefore, we are not saying no to anything that is there on the table, but we will evaluate things on their merit per se.
Ladies and gentlemen, that was the last question for today. I would now like to hand the conference back to Ms. Nidhi Verma for closing comments. Over to you, ma'am.
Thanks. Thanks, everyone, for dialing in, and we are mindful that we were not able to take some questions because of paucity of time. So you can reach out to me if you have any queries. And yes, I would like to thank you all on behalf of the management for joining us today, and stay safe and take care. Thank you.
Thank you. On behalf of the ICICI Securities Limited, we conclude today's conference. Thank you all for joining. You may now disconnect your lines.