Thank you so much, and welcome everyone to the Q3 FY 2026 results for Tata Consumer. As we usually do, we'll first walk through the key highlights of the quarter for the first 10 to 15 minutes, and then we'll open the floor for Q&A.

Today, I'm joined in the room by Mr. Sunil D'Souza, Managing Director and CEO, Mr.

Ashish Goenka, Group CFO, Mr. Ajit Krishnakumar, Executive Director and COO.

I'll just draw your attention to the disclaimer statement which is on your screen. With that, I'll hand it over to Sunil.

Yeah. Thanks, Nidhi.

If I have to summarize, we've had a decent quarter where we had a 15% revenue growth, India branded business posted underlying volume growth of 15%, India tea up 3% as the tea prices have come down, we've started passing on pricing back to consumers. Overall YTD, we are growing at 9%.

Just to put it in perspective, we've always guided for a mid to high-single-digit growth for the tea business. Salt had a, I would say, strong quarter, 14% revenue and 15% volume as we did targeted actions on consumer price and trade promotions coupled with the A&P in specific geographies.

We saw strong results there. Growth businesses, which we've always guided for being 30% of our business growing at 30%, we were quite in the ballpark growing 29% and our revenue surpassing 1,000 crores in quarterly revenue.

Tata Sampann had a strong quarter, 45% growth, all volume-driven. RTD delivered strong performance, 26%, again, all volume-driven.

Capital Foods and Organic India together grew 15. Organic India was in the 30s and Capital Foods India grew sequentially month on month.

We were impacted a bit by the US tariffs because 20% of Capital Foods is international. International business maintained a strong trajectory, 11% constant currency revenue growth primarily led by US coffee, which had strong volume growth as well.

Non-branded business up 20 with profitability remaining healthy, but margins coming back to normative levels as coffee prices have stabilized, albeit at a higher level. Consolidated EBITDA up 26.

EBITDA has grown roughly 2x of revenue. Margins expanded 60 bps quarter on quarter, 120 bps year on year to 14.2.

Our innovation pipeline remains strong with 15 new product launches through the year. Innovation to sales is roughly 4.8, almost close to our target of 5.

Yeah. So, 1,600 crores of India beverages with a growth of 7%, foods similar number growing at 19, international 1,300 growing at 18, and non-branded growing 23, total 5,000.

This was a landmark quarter for us having crossed the 5,000 crore in a quarter number. Year to date, close to 15,000 crores growing at 14% with all businesses delivering double-digit revenue growths.

Yeah, 5,100 5,112 crores top line growing 15, 728 crores of EBITDA, 14.2 percentage points, PBT up by 11% to 563 crores, before exceptionals net profit of 399 crores which is up by 130 bps versus last year, and we're now sitting with 1,272 crores of cash. 9 months, almost 15,000 crore growing at 14, group net profit before exceptionals growing at 17% to 1,137 crores, and yeah, 1,272 crores of cash.

Yeah. Starting with the India business, we maintained our A&P close to the 7%, 6.8 to be precise.

Salt market share, we had volume growth. On top of that, we had market share growth as well of 40 bps.

Market share of tea, as I've mentioned, this only tracks about 57% to 60% of our business, down 70 bps. Next slide.

I had talked about last quarter about our pilots on go-to-market. Just to repeat, a lot of the salt strong geographies were also the geographies where our new growth businesses were supposed to be strong, and therefore to provide the requisite focus, we had three types of pilots running.

A separate salt distributor in salt geographies where salt contribution was very high and a non-salt distributor. In geographies where salt plus tea was very high, salt alone was not, salt plus tea was very high, we separated into core and growth.

There are cities where smaller outlets we've now got a common salesman going in, whereas for larger outlets we've got separate split routes selling by category going in. All the three pilots more or less were bang on on the KPIs that we had budgeted for, and therefore now we are rolling it out nationally.

We are about 82% done on the national rollout. By first week of February, we'll be 100% done.

270-odd distributors have been transitioned to the new go-to-market model and we've added 160 more distributors. We've used AI to align routes and servicing norms.

Also, dispatch plans, auto-replenishment systems have been aligned, and the sales hierarchy has also been realigned as needed. For example, if it's the salt plus all non-salt, the territory executives and area managers will handle only salt and we consolidate at the region level.

To give dedicated focus both from a supervisory level as well as from a execution level on the ground. This I already talked about, 29% contribution growing at 29, 29% growth and growth businesses now account for 30% of our India business.

New launches across health and wellness, convenience, and premiumization. We have launched matcha.

We've launched RTD green tea and fruit tea, green tea which includes L-carnitine as well, Tata Copper now in glass. We've launched various formats of coffee and jelly and flavors in coffee.

Soulfull, we've launched Slim Care. In convenience, we've got ready mixes for paneer chilli, schezwan, and manchurian.

We always had ginger garlic paste, but there is an opportunity for a separate ginger and garlic. We've launched the high-end chilli soy, light soy which is primarily used in Southeast Asian/Japanese restaurants.

Rock salt, we've taken it to the next level by launching a Himalayan version. Our ratings underscore our commitment to responsible business.

We've upped the game on MSCI ratings, upped our score on S&P Global, and done decently on all the other ratings. In macro terms, tea prices are coming down broadly to the 2024 levels, albeit in the fag end of Q3, we did see a little bit of an uptick on tea prices, keeping a close watch on that.

Coffee had started to come down except after the Venezuela action, there was a bit of uptick on coffee. The forecast is that from the current about 370 to 390, it should start coming down, but your guess is as good as mine on coffee pricing.

We remain agile and ready to take pricing as and when needed. In packaged beverages, 3% volume translated to 3% net revenue for tea, marginal movement in market share, albeit gross margins expanded handsomely out here as tea prices came back to normal.

India Foods, 19% net revenue growth, 16% volume, salt up by 14 on revenue, Sampann 45, salt market share up by 40 bps. Ready-to-drink close to a 200 crore net revenue.

Remember, Q3 is probably one of our lower quarters and therefore we are well poised to recover strongly in the coming season. Revenue up 26 primarily driven by volume up at 27, and we've expanded the ready-to-drink tea and coffee aggressively in the meantime.

Capital Foods, Organic India. Capital Foods close to 240 crore revenue, Organic India 120 crores, combined gross margins of close to 50%.

Non-branded business, revenue up 20, solubles revenue up is 34%. Tata Starbucks, second successive quarter of same-store sales growth of 3%.

Average daily traffic, which was the issue, is now more or less stabilized. Ticket is holding.

We opened 12 new stores during the quarter, we are now at 504. We opened our second Reserve store in Gurgaon, and now we are present in 81 cities, with Jabalpur being the latest city to be opened.

UK, flat on revenue, market share on black close to 19%, and we continue to maintain 10% value market share, but very strong delivery on profitability in the UK. The US business, very strong revenue growth driven both by volume and by pricing at 31, market share slowly inching up both for K-Cups as well as coffee bags.

In the US, coffee bags are growing roughly four times the growth rate of K-Cups, and given our strong share in bags, we remain quite confident to continue this growth at least in the near term. Canada, as we took some aggressive pricing on tea, revenue has been sluggish.

Growth in specialty has been heartening at 2%, and overall more or less maintained our market share at a 25%. Ashish, over to you for financials.

Thank you, Sunil. I think most of you would have seen the numbers, I'll keep it very brief.

Our consolidated revenue crossed the milestone of 5,000 crores this quarter growing at 15%. Growth was fairly broad-based with all three vectors of the business delivering double-digit growth, which is India, international, and non-branded.

In terms of margin, we expanded our EBITDA margins by 120 basis points, sequentially by 60 basis points. EBIT margins expanded by 150 basis points this quarter.

This was largely driven by the recovery in India margins and led by the moderation in tea prices and therefore recovery in the tea margins. International margins continued to remain impacted by the US coffee, albeit some of the pricing interventions that we have taken in the last quarter has improved the margin profile, but the gap remains.

On non-branded, there was again a contraction in the margin, largely on account of the fact that in the base we had some inventory gains and fair valuation gains, which of course are not repeating, but margins have come to more normative levels right now. On a 9-month basis, very quickly, top line on consolidated basis growing at 14%, underlying 13%, and of course, at a YTD level, our EBITDA margins have contracted by 80 basis points because of the impact that we had both on tea and coffee in the first half.

Overall financials, as Sunil said, top line growing at 15%, EBITDA growing at 26, and PAT growing at 34. In terms of exceptional item, we have three this quarter.

We had a one-time gain on a sale of property, which was offset by a one-time charge that we took on some of the impairment of assets because of the transformation that is happening in our coffee factory in the US. We also did a one-time catch-up as a consequent to the labor codes, which were announced recently.

The gratuity catch-up and the leave encashment catch-up was about 23 crores, which is what you see in the exception line. With that, the PAT growth was about 34%.

I think I'll not spend time on the standalone and the segment performance. Maybe we can jump to the Q&A straightaway.

Happy to take questions.

Yeah. Thanks.

Congrats on strong performance. My first question is on Tata Soulfull and Tata Sampann.

Tata Soulfull, I wanted to understand how is the market share in the past two years, and this is a great, exciting market on paper, but reasonably challenging because there is one strong multinational company, and then there is a long tail of lot of new companies, some of the existing companies have also entered. What is the right to win here?

How are you able to differentiate? If you could discuss Tata Soulfull.

On Tata Sampann, very strong numbers, 45% growth, largely essentially volume-led. If you could tell us here, how have the legacy business done, and how have the new businesses like the cashew, nuts, etc., those have done?

We can get a sense of where is the growth coming from. Any one-off there given 45% growth?

Abneesh, let me take your second question first. The Sampann growth is broad-based.

The base businesses of poha, pulses, makhana, all of them are firing off on great cylinders, percentage growth-wise. Let me say it has come from the new businesses as well as from the legacy businesses, right?

The best part is my dry fruits business is now close to a 250, 300 crore annual run rate. Cold-pressed oils is again in the similar ballpark.

All of this have been launched in the last 18 to 24 months, right? Differentiated product very specifically entering trust-deficit categories, very, very clear winners.

In fact, the good part is this is just the base foundation, because the ultimate idea in dry fruits is we will play the whole spectrum. Now that we know the sourcing, we know the time of the year when to source, which channels, what are the packs which work, what are the dry fruits which work, now when we enter the flavored, roasted, salted, that is where we will move up the value ladder.

That's a good part. Similarly in cold-pressed oils, I think we've off to a great start, because normally we would list on e-commerce, then go to I would say SAMTs, then GT, and then modern trade.

This time we've had pull from modern trade pulling us into the outlet even before we went to GT or SAMT. That's how powerful the propositions is.

We remain bullish on Sampann, but again, I'll go back to our guidance is for a roughly a 30% growth and we will remain guided by that. That's number one.

On Soulfull, we are close to a double-digit market share in most categories which we operate. We don't track for all the categories in which we operate, but mostly close to a double-digit number.

The big numbers for us are in the Choco Fills as well as the muesli segment, which is growing very fast. Here's the thing.

In Soulfull, it is not one particular category that we are playing at. If you look at it, we've expanded to different categories and therefore expanded TAM, and therefore we're not playing in the small pond given the fact that we are playing in ragi, we're playing in Choco Sticks, we are playing in muesli, we are playing in breakfast cereals as well.

It's a wide-ranging thing. Broadly, let me say we are decently satisfied, but we do think we can take Soulfull to the next level.

I wouldn't worry about one incumbent versus all startups, etc. Everyone can carve out their own space.

I think with the plans that we have, we remain quite confident.

Yeah. Thanks.

Two follow-ups to my first question. One is you said 30% is a more normal number to look at from a growth perspective for Sampann, but growth was 45%, there's no one-off.

You could clarify on that. Second is on the margins for dry fruits and, say, for Soulfull, any color you can give from a outlook perspective?

When do you see that normalizing versus the overall non-core portfolio, ex of the salt and, say, your tea business, when do the margins for these two sub-segments normalize versus the non-legacy?

Let me put it this way, yeah. There is no one-off in Sampann this quarter.

I'm just trying to temper expectations on the number that we might not always hit a 6, sometimes it will also be a 4, right? From that perspective, I think 30 is a realistic number for us to keep targeting.

While we know we can drive 45 and we'll continue to drive for that. On the margin perspective, I have always said on Sampann, we were close to double-digit margins.

The good news is we have hit double digit. We remain confident of edging up the total business to close to a 15 sort of number in the medium term, near to medium term.

While we are growing top line, the good news is we are constantly improving the margin profile as well. Going forward, the margin profile will only get better as like I said, in dry fruits, the margins are in the roasted, salted, flavored ones.

For you to get there, you need to know how to play the base game, because then you add the value additions on top of that.

Yeah. Thanks.

Last question, salt, which is generally very highly penetrated, last two quarters has seen super volume growth. I do understand you did mention on the grammage addition, the trade incentive, and promotions, but on a full-year basis does it normalize?

Because initially customer will buy more, but he will not consume more salt anyway given it has a health kind of a question mark. Would you say that next two quarter this could start normalizing to a much more modest number, or you see that market share gains will continue?

Abneesh, we've always guided for salt being again in the mid to high-single-digit growth on revenue, volume being about 4% to 5% and rest being value price mix movements. Just to give you a perspective, I think the top six brands are probably 56%, 57% market share in this category.

The balance 44 is a long tail of what I call no-name brands. The scope for growth is enormous.

It's not necessarily driven by per capita consumption, it is driven more by market share and improved penetration of Tata Salt, not necessarily salt, right? Replacing other brands in the household.

The market size could be 2x of what it is if you just extrapolate from that perspective. Mid to longer term, we have maintained that it will be mid to high single digits.

Thanks. That's all from my side.

Thank you.

Congrats on good set of numbers. Sir, first question is, is this strong momentum that we are witnessing, is it the broader consumption recovery or largely led by our own execution or mix of execution and base effect?

How do you see this sustaining over coming quarters?

Let me say, we've always said we will drive double-digit top line and bottom line ahead of the top line, and I think we've roughly delivered that. I wouldn't comment about the broader consumption and recoveries, etc.

I do think the teams have executed our plans quite well, and the plans have changed through the year. For example, we didn't have the salt targeted actions baked into the numbers or the expansion of certain brands like Sampann baked into the numbers.

Let me say Tata Consumer, I would say, is an entrepreneurial company. As we see opportunities, we jump in.

It's not that it's not in our budget, we'll execute next year. That doesn't happen here, yeah?

If we see opportunity, we will drive it. We've seen opportunity this quarter and across the board, I think the teams have driven the numbers quite well.

Very clear. Sir, second, the growth portfolio has done phenomenally well and we have reached your target of 30% of the India business at least a quarter ahead of your timeline.

How should we think about this number now moving? Would you say that this can be 40%, 50% of portfolio by FY let's say '28, '29 or you are keeping it open as of now?

Let me say, growth businesses have to contribute to a higher percentage of the India business, fundamentally, because they're defined as growth businesses, they'll grow faster than the core. The mix will change, and that's a conscious strategy.

As we seek to diversify away from being a salt and tea company into a multi-category food and beverage company, this will happen. We're in the middle of putting numbers together for the next year and beyond.

As and when we have clarity, we will definitely give guidance. As of now, I would say 30 is a good number to put a peg on.

As and when we look at a different number, we will revert on that.

Perfect. That's all from my side.

Thanks.

Hi, sir. Thank you for taking my question and congrats on a great set of numbers.

Firstly, on tea pricing, have all the price cuts in tea captured in the quarter? If not, what percentage is reflected in 3Q?

Secondly, on tea, now with tea prices going up again, fair to say that given that you have bought most of the tea prices in 2Q, you will have a lower cost advantage, and can that have a tailwind to margins? That's on tea first.

Mihir, let me say broadly on commodities, we have given up on forecasting with accuracy, right? Given climate change, etc., etc., you don't know how things pan out.

Number one. We remain flexible, agile, able to move in either direction, and that's what I maintained even in coffee.

That's number one. Number two, there was a small uptick on tea prices at end of the quarter, but remember January to about mid-March, early April is a very lean season in the north.

Now, how the north crop comes out mid-March to early April will determine the opening prices then. Therefore, I would not make a statement as to whether we'll be better off or worse off, right?

We've done a calculation, we've got inventory for a decent part of Q1, but we will be flexible on moving up or down depending on how the commodity fares when the season opens. To the other point, we've already passed on most of the increases in this quarter, and that's why you saw volume equal to value growth for the quarter.

As of now, if nothing changes, broadly we'll go back to the mid-single-digit volume plus a couple of basis points of price mix.

Understood. Secondly, can you talk a little bit more about the GTM changes that you highlighted?

80% you've already said that pilot is already in place. Now, that is only for those number of states, eight states or so, or it is for pan-India?

Some clarity on that, and what is the impact on the growth there? The 30% growth that you had called out for the growth businesses captures this GTM changes, or one can expect elevated growth because of this?

Number one, the primary reason we've done this GTM changes is to continue to drive growth. Now, as the percentage of growth businesses grows and the absolute grows, I think even maintaining the 30 is a decent enough target to have.

In the short to medium term, we're not changing the 30. The GTM changes fundamentally are supposed to be making sure that they drive growth.

A, they're pan-India, they're not restricted to specific states. We had shown the maps on certain things on the strong points where Capital Foods was strong, where salt is strong, and where Organic India was strong.

If that is the deduction for the eight states, that's not a right number. We've done a pan-India more than 5 lakh-plus more than 10 lakh-plus cities.

Any city which is either overwhelming share of salt, then it is a salt plus non-salt. Where salt plus tea is overwhelming, for example, Calcutta was a 91% salt plus tea and only 9% contribution from growth, there we have gone plus core plus growth.

Then across every other city where we have common distributors and we had split routes earlier, we've gone back and because the retailers told us that for small drops, small this thing, they don't want multiple salesmen coming in. Therefore the smaller outlets, if I remember right, it's more than 3,000 rupees drop per month in urban and in metros and 2,000 in lower than metros, we have common salesmen.

Beyond that, we have multi-category salesmen going in split routes. The idea is the salesman has dedicated focus.

Above the salesman, the TSE and the ASM is also structured by category. For salt, it is the guys only handle salt, and if it is core and growth, there is a team which is only handling core, there is a team which only handling growth.

That gives dedicated focus behind execution. Not only supervisory level, execution level, everything is segmented to drive growth.

Got it. Last question on the margins, I know you highlighted double-digit revenue growth higher than revenue growth will be the profit growth.

Can you just highlight what will be the tailwinds for margins, happy to know that your dry fruits portfolio will contribute to Sampann, etc., but again that will be in the overall scheme of things will be relatively smaller. What are the other drivers that can lead to better margin growth and drive higher than revenue growth on the profitability front?

I think the single biggest lever will be scale, simply, right? Growing 14%, 15% in that ballpark, we get huge leverage of scale, number one.

Number two is the mix of the portfolio. We've got a balance between the higher-margin acquisitions, tea, salt to be growing enough to offset the lower-margin growth of a Sampann, for example, and we've managed that so far.

Overall, like I said, when we exit Q4, we should be in the ballpark of a 14.5% to a 15% EBITDA margin. 15 is a normative number which we need to get to.

Longer term, as we continue to drive premiumization in our portfolio and drive premium categories in the portfolio and improve margins for the base categories, for example pulses, it was a -5% when we started 5 years back, today it's close to a double digit, right? As we improve that as well, we would expect to continue to improve the gross margin profile.

Longer term, I've always maintained a good foods business in India should be a 17% plus. We are targeted towards that in the longer term.

Got it. Thank you, Sunil.

Wishing you and the team all the very best.

Thank you.

Yes. Hi Sunil.

Good evening and congratulations on the strong performance. The first question was on Capital Foods.

If you could just give a sense of what the domestic growth was, leaving apart the international impact that you mentioned because of tariffs, and ideally I think as you were highlighting, you were expecting the changes there to sort of reflect in better growth. What is still missing for that part of the business to see a pick-up?

Overall, Capital Foods has improved month on month for us, and like I said, we expect the go-to-market changes that we're doing to provide impetus to that. Overall, the softness in Capital Foods was like I said, month on month, the early part of the quarter was a bit soft.

More importantly, 20% of the business is exports, largely the US. While tea, coffee and base spices the tariffs have gone to zero, the rest of the portfolio still remains at 50%.

As we've taken up prices aggressively, that has had quite a bit of an impact.

Just possible to call out what was the growth in the export part of Capital Foods?

Exports was roughly flat for the whole quarter.

Understood. The second question was on acquisitions.

Now historically, you've always mentioned that whenever you'll incrementally be evaluating, it has to be aligned to distribution, potentially something that can sort of go in the same track as you've highlighted. If you ever have to consider categories which are, say, beyond this, then what are going to be the aspects which you look into?

It's the same, nothing changes, right? A, it has to pass our strategic filters.

Right now, we're in food and beverage. In food and beverage, we've defined specific categories where we're playing.

More or less, we've ticked all the boxes on the categories that we wanted to play in, and we've got the brands now to play across the food and beverage spectrum. A.

B, apart from that, it has to make sense from a financial value creation perspective, right? Unless that happens, I don't think we'll be doing acquisitions, but that's not to say that we won't.

We are keeping our eyes and ears open. Like I said, almost every deal that happens in India does pass through either Tata Sons or Tata Consumer, we either will do or will not do depending on the fact that it has to tick off both the strategic and financial filters.

Got it, Sunil. Maybe some more questions, I'll come back in the queue.

Thanks.

Hi, sir. My question is on Sampann.

As a brand overall, all the categories that Sampann deals in, is the brand break-even at a EBITDA level?

Percy, we've always maintained we do not do EBITDA for brands. For every single business, we do something called margin after advertising and promotion expenses, because below that the sales force, the operations are all common costs.

I can always do a hypothetical allocation Excel sheet accounting number, but that's not a true way to judge the business. The MAP for Sampann is positive, and it is improving quarter on quarter in line with our expectations.

Understood, sir. Given that this business is a lower margin and it would be growing at very high pace, do you think that it will sort of put a drag on the overall consolidated margins?

Percy, for the last 5 years we've been growing Sampann at 30% and we maintained the gross margin. The whole trick is to make sure that your portfolio works to your advantage.

As I said, we've crafted our portfolio in a manner where, A, we've got a set of businesses which are paying the bills and with a steady state gross margin, bar up and down of a US coffee or a tea happening from time to time, but broadly longer-term tea, salt, international, very steady businesses, mid to high single digits and certain gross margins. There are high top line businesses of RTD and Sampann where the margin is lower, but improving consistently.

Then there are the growth businesses growing aggressively, smaller businesses, but significantly higher margin profiles of Capital Foods, Soulfull, Organic India, those. It is all to make sure that you're balancing top line and bottom line at the same time.

It's a delicate balance to place. If none of my other businesses were growing, it was only Sampann, it'll be dilutive.

I think over the last 5 years, we have proved that we have the ability to juggle multiple balls at the same time.

Understood, sir. Earlier when you said a foods business in the longer run should be 17%, is that at a EBITDA level or is that at the other calculation, that is variable costs and advertising but not accounting for fixed costs?

No, no. I wish I was allowed to deliver businesses of MAP of only 17%, because below that there is at least 12% to 13% of costs coming in, right?

I can nowhere deliver EBITDA as required. This is EBITDA percentage of 17%.

17% plus is the number.

Got it, sir. Secondly, on tea, just wanted to understand the volume growth of 3% is a little lower than sort of our targets.

What is playing here? Is it sort of competition, or is it just a one-off quarter, or what should we read into this?

Percy, I wouldn't measure too much into the quarter-on-quarter for every single category. Overall, year to date, we have delivered a 9% top line for tea.

Also remember, last year same quarter, we had delivered a 7% volume growth, we're cycling that. If you do 7 and 3, we are back to the 5% 4% to 5% volume growth which we have been guiding for.

A is the base quarter. Second, I would urge not to look at quarter to quarter, there will be ups and downs, because at times you'll have volume upsides, price downsides and vice versa.

Sometimes a few quarters it does take to settle, but overall, India tea, about 4% to 5% volume and a couple of basis points of price mix, that's what we guide for.

Sir. That's all from me.

Thanks and all the best.

Thanks for taking my question. Two questions from me.

The first question was with respect to Capital Foods. Sunil, just want to hear from you that in 2026, do we have any major plans with respect to scaling that part of our portfolio?

I'll just add the second question also. The second question is overall on the distribution side, for the next 2 years, what is the kind of road map we have with respect to our GTM strategy?

On the GTM strategy overall, we cover about 1.7, 1.8 million outlets directly and numeric reach is about 4.5 million. In the medium term, our target is to get to about a 5 million numeric reach, and the reason I'm emphasizing this because direct reach will probably, I would say, an aspirational number is about 1.9 to 2 million.

I wouldn't drive beyond that because now we have to get the wholesale multiplier and get into the semi-urban, rural territory, which are our lower share territory. That's number one.

On Capital Foods, our ambition remains 25% to 30%. I do think we've started to expand the portfolio through innovation, number one.

Number two, the new segmented go-to-market and supervisory system should drive us there. Apart from that, you would have seen our new ads that we've created.

This is in the mold of how Capital Foods was built, making blockbuster ads memorable which lasts for a long time. That is the third pillar.

Just one follow-up, Sunil. Is there something which we feel that is [unclear] as of now?

Sorry, we missed you in the middle.

Yeah. Is there something which is missing for us to kind of accelerate the growth part for Capital Foods?

Is there some missing link here which we need to work on right now?

I wouldn't say there is a missing link. Basically, there are two jobs in Capital Foods.

There is market share growth in existing categories, and there is category creation for us. The south and east of the country, Capital Foods is a slightly alien thing, right?

They've not seen schezwan chutney, etc. Both advertising and sampling at scale are the critical pieces and we've started accelerating that.

We've upped our what we call taste ambassadors by roughly 50% over the last, I would say, 6 months or so, and like you've seen, pumped up our A&P including bringing in known faces from the south into the ads so as to relate better to the consumers. Lastly, like I mentioned, I'll give you the example of Calcutta where 91% of the business is tea and salt, 9% is total growth categories.

You can imagine how much focus it gets. Therefore, the segmented go-to-market will be a huge unlock because now there is dedicated focus on these categories.

Sorry, 90% if you could just repeat, Sunil?

In Calcutta, 91% of the business came from tea and salt, and 9% from all the growth categories including Organic India, Capital Foods, Soulfull, and Sampann. Whether it's the distributor, whether it is the salesman, whether it is the supervisor, ultimately bread and butter is paid for by tea and salt, and therefore the focus is always tea and salt.

Now that we've separated it out, there is dedicated focus on this growth categories and that's where we expect the unlocks.

Sir, if I may ask, what is the reverse of that 91-9? Which are the markets where we are seeing the fastest growth for our growth categories?

Fastest growth for growth categories across the place. I just gave you an example of Calcutta because that stuck in my mind about what should be done in large metro markets to unlock.

Understood. Thank you, Sunil.

Yeah. Hi, sir.

Thank you for the opportunity. My question is related to RTD portfolio.

Two parts of the question. One is that we launched the ZipZap energy drink, I think, previous quarter.

How has been the initial reception to it? Secondly, there is expectation that summer will be good this year and a lot of beverage companies are now already started to build their channel, increasing visicooler and all.

Where we are in the distribution and how we are planning to increase our distribution and reach before the summer

breaks? Let me use a Hindi term, "aapke munh mein ghee shakkar," because I have stopped trying to forecast the weather, right?

When there are rains in Bombay in November and December and it doesn't rain till around June, July, it's a very difficult forecast, right? That said, you're absolutely right, seasonality does pick up.

I would say probably February onwards is when you would start seeing the uptick. Right now, let me say over the last 2 years, we have started to be ahead of the curve.

We have ramped up our distribution and we should be in a good position by around end January, early February, whether it is sales force, whether it is distributors, whether it is salesmen, because after that the entire focus is on execution. If it's a good summer, we will ride it out.

Like you've seen, it's not a pricing-driven growth, it's a volume-driven growth, which I feel good about. We've very, very clearly started to build out the three pillars, the entire water stack right from the 10-rupee bottle of Copper Water up to the 90, 100-rupee bottle of Himalayan and the entire range in between, and you will see some more aggressive launches in this space coming in in the next 60 days or so.

We've started to build the whole stack of ready-to-drink tea and coffee, whether it is green tea, fruit tea, kombucha, ready-to-drink coffee in a can at 70, we've now a PET at 50, and high-end as well. Then of course, we've got the entire cups portfolio.

ZipZap was launched middle of last quarter. Fingers crossed, we're still in a few markets.

We want to test it out before we go broad-based, but right now more or less to expectations.

Thank you, sir. Just a follow-up on RTD.

What is the current reach if you can how many outlets we reach for RTD?

I'll have to get back to you on the exact number of outlets, but it's broadly in the million outlet ballpark. Right now, we will focus on growing our share in this territory before widening the footprint.

Okay.

Thank you so much.

thank you for taking my question.

Just give me a minute. Hi, is this clear?

Hello?

Moderator, perhaps we [unclear] webcast?

Okay. Sunil and Ashish, there are some questions on the webcast link.

I think some of those have been answered, which were touching upon the go-to-market changes, which you've already explained. There is one more question on the India beverage market share in tea has seen some softness despite revenue growth.

To what extent is this a conscious value over share trade-off, and how do you internally track success in such situations?

I think I've publicly maintained and the good news is now multiple people are saying the same thing. If you've read the Economic Times, I think, yesterday or day before, just to give you a perspective, last quarter, I think about 18.5% of my business came from e-commerce, quick commerce.

The last previous quarter was 21, this quarter it was 18.5. Modern trade roughly is in the 14, 15 ballpark, so that's 33.

About 5% comes from institutions, which is 38. Therefore, all of GT is only 60 62% of the business.

In modern trade, remember, which Nielsen reports, one significant player doesn't share data. At best, they're reporting about two-thirds of the market in a sampling format.

If you observe market share ups and downs, I would urge you to listen to commentary from multiple players, and then make up your mind about who's gained share, who's lost share. Because there is no other database available, we continue to report Nielsen, because otherwise if I don't report, I'll be accused of trying to hide numbers.

We do report it for what it is worth. When my volume growth is still a strong number compared to industry, when total value growth is close to double digits, we feel in a good place.

I don't think we're losing market share. It might move marginally up and down.

Just to give you a perspective, Nielsen does measure e-commerce, they don't report it and don't total it into this, but we are market leaders on e-commerce. Incidentally, e-commerce, quick commerce, as I mentioned, quick commerce has grown 100%.

On e-commerce, we have about a 38, 39 share and we're leaders. If I total all that, it'll be a completely different picture.

There are channel shifts which Nielsen doesn't measure. Where it measures, it's by sampling.

Like I said, in modern trade doesn't pick up one player. Your guess is as good as mine.

Thank you, Sunil. The next question is on Tata Sampann.

The question is that is the growth being primarily driven by distribution expansion, or are we beginning to see repeat consumption and brand-led pull, especially in staples like pulses and spices?

Let me say, my strongest channel for Sampann is e-commerce, simply because most of the categories that we play in, with all due respect, we're also competing with a retailer. Remember, when I am selling a pulses, he is scooping up pulses from a 50-kilo bag making a 50% margin on that, whereas in my Sampann, he'll at best make a 15% odd sort of margin.

Therefore, e-commerce, quick commerce is the stronger channel for Sampann. The fact that we're getting this volume traction and this thing just proves that we've built brand loyalty and pull.

Just to put it in perspective, even when I do market visits, etc., most of the times, even the GT retailers who are around, they attest to the fact that once a consumer has picked up Sampann, then they hardly go back, just because of our stringent adherence to quality norms.

Okay. Thank you, Sunil.

There is a question on innovation. It says, "With innovation remaining strong at 15 launches this quarter, would you share what percentage of revenue now comes from products launched in the last 3 years, and how has this metric evolved?"

We've launched 15 product this quarter, year to date is 55. We've publicly said that we want to be around the 5% plus mark on innovation to sales, defined as revenue from products launched in the last 3 years.

We're at a 4.8 at end of last quarter and there's no reason we will not cross 5 this year.

Thank you. There is one question on, "How do you see the EU FTA for Tata Consumer in the long term, and any update on Tata Starbucks on further store opening in terms of resizing stores and further investment in that business?"

EU FTA, I will not comment on it because I'm not sure we have all the details on what unfolds, number one. Number two, as we've mentioned, our big focus areas in the international markets are UK, US, Canada.

EU is there, but it is not a very, very significant piece, I would wait and watch to see how that pans out. On Tata Starbucks, we remain bullish on the coffee opportunity in India, both in-home and out-of-home.

On out-of-home, it is Tata Starbucks. We are now at 504 stores in 81 cities.

We are immensely focused on making sure we constantly tweak our business model to make sure it appeals to Indian consumers and we continue to drive business. As we said, coming from a significant dip in the entire QSR industry over the last 24 months, last two quarters have been encouraging.

We're now in positive same-store sales growth. We did temper store openings a bit to ride through the softness and make sure we made the right modifications to enable faster growth going forward.

We remain in the middle of that entire exercise. Longer term, we do intend to be among the top, if not the top coffee shop in India.

Thank you, Sunil. There is a question from Rohit from White Oak.

He's asking, "How much is quick commerce within this quick e-commerce savings of 18%

to 20%?" Quick commerce is about 15.

The balance, about 4 to 5, would be e-commerce.

I'm just mindful of the time, maybe I'll just take one last question from the webcast. "Can you clarify the outlook for tea price mix going forward, given we have given some pricing back to consumers?

Should we expect some negative price mix for the next few quarters?"

As I said, we've given off most of the pricing during this quarter, but I don't think the entire picture on the pricing has flown through. There would be a little bit of impact of price mix, but I wouldn't say it will be significant enough, but it will be sort of flattish to slightly lower going forward.

As I said, as we've given off price, we expect volume to pick up. As I said, we've said mid to high single digit revenue growth.

At points in time, volume will be overpowering versus price growth and vice versa. Going forward, at least for the short term, we expect volume to come back stronger and therefore us continuing to deliver the mid to high single digit revenue top line.

Perhaps one last question before we wrap up. There is a question on international margins, whether they are largely back at normative levels or are we likely to get expansion in the fourth quarter?

No. International margins are not at the normative level, simply because the entire impact of the coffee cost increases have not passed through.

We've had one more round of price increase in the US in the month of January, post which we would have broadly passed on the current cost increases. That takes some time to translate into the P&L.

I would say we're about a quarter away from seeing normalized pricing for international. Yeah.

We're at least a quarter off.

Thank you. Thank you so much, Sunil.

Just being mindful of the time, I know there are still some pending questions, but perhaps you can reach out to us for that. On behalf of the management of Tata Consumer, I would like to thank you for joining us today.

Thank you.

Thank you, everyone.