State of Biscuit Makers in India

The hard-hitting Indian economic crisis has also taken a toll on the Biscuit makers in India.

What has happened?

• The Indian Rural economy is in shambles and is facing a significant credit crunch which has been magnified by successive droughts and crop failures.
• The rural sector is one of the largest consumers of small biscuit packets which make up a large share of domestic sales for food companies in India.
• The lack of buying has forced the food companies to cut back production, reduce input costs or even cut jobs to stay competitive in the market.
• The two leading biscuit makers in India, Britannia, and Parle have both suffered great losses and are undergoing a virtual faceoff with detrimental finances in their books.

What is Brittania doing?

• To tackle the adverse economic conditions, the FMCG major Britannia Industries has planned to increase the prices of its products by a small margin in the quarter three of the current fiscal year to tackle the economic slowdown.
• The company claims that the falling economy has taken a toll on the growth of the company’s sales in gross value terms.

What is Parle doing?

• The company Parle is facing an even more adverse situation with sales of all its products, even its iconic flagship product, the Parle G is down 7-8%. 
• This has forced the biscuit maker to lay-off over 10,000 workers out of its over 1 lakh employees.