RPSG-FMCG targets Rs 10,000 crore turnover by 2025, expects Too Yumm! to be a Rs 600-crore brand next year

Diversified conglomerate RP Sanjeev Goenka Group (RPSG) is targeting Rs 10,000 crore in revenues by 2025 from its two-year-old FMCG business, which is being run under a separate company called Guiltfree Industries.

The company is expecting to rake in most of the revenue from the flagship brand Too Yumm!, positioned as a healthy snack brand.

Too Yumm!, which has PepsiCo’s Kurkure and ITC’s Bingo Tedhe Medhe as its main competition, is clocking over Rs 300 crore a year and is likely to double its sales to more than Rs 600 crore in another year.

The company is already doing good in terms of sales in big cities and through e-commerce channels. It's now focusing on making inroads in Sec C and D segment cities.

BestMediaInfo.com caught up with Anupam Bokey, Vice-President, Marketing (CMO), of the FMCG Business, RP- Sanjeev Goenka Group, to dig in deeper about the advertising and marketing strategy of the brand, Too Yumm.

With an array of product variants such as quinoa puffs, veggie stix, foxnuts, multigrain chips and the newly launched Karare, Too Yumm! as a brand has been successful in cracking a balance of taste and health, thereby providing the scope to establish its proposition and gain consumer loyalty, despite having strongly entrenched competitors, said Bokey.

The snacks category is quite large and complex. Salty snacks, as Nielsen defines it, is a Rs 28,000-crore market, driven primarily by fried snacks. Of late, there has been a trend of healthy snacking aligned to the consumers’ need to take care of their health.

Anupam Bokey

“Consumers are open to experimenting with healthier snacking options provided it meets their primary need of great taste. We play on the western snacking part of the portfolio and have managed a 2% national market share in this segment within our first full year of launch,” said Bokey.

Too Yumm! appointed cricketer Virat Kohli, as its brand ambassador in 2017. But why him? “Further to several rounds of internal discussion, we finally zeroed in on Kohli. His personality fits very well with the key attributes of the brand -- health focused, young, modern and energetic,” said Bokey.

Talking about the idea behind the brand’s tagline -- ‘Fried Not, Fikar Not’, he added that it is to convey to their consumers that Too Yumm! is the solution to their guiltless bingeing needs. “Our products are completely baked and not fried, with 40% less fat, making it the perfect snack to munch on without having to worry about one’s health,” he said.

The marketing challenge

Too Yumm!’s marketing strategy is to continuously reinforce the proposition of healthier snacking, and fuel the healthy snacking trend. As the category is very large with extremely high penetration, TV becomes Too Yumm!’s lead channel for creating mass awareness, and takes the lion’s share of their investments.

“We supplement it with digital and social to drive stronger engagement with our brand, especially since we have a rather differentiated brand and story to tell. Given that our core target group (TG) is young, we choose genres that have high affinity with our TG,” pointed out Bokey.

Any trends and challenges that Bokey foresees for the snacks segment in India? “The healthy snacking trend is rather strong and Too Yumm!’s presence has provided a strong impetus for its further growth,” he said.

The adoption of Too Yumm! is strongest in metros, modern trade, e-commerce and among Sec A and B consumers. The challenges are to drive adoption down Sec C and D, and also down pop strata and upcountry markets, but there are visible signs of that happening for the brand.

Bokey said, “For the products per se, the challenge is to ensure that the taste is great, as it’s a primary driver of the snacking category, which is where we think Too Yumm! has been great.”

Talking about revenues of the group’s FMCG business, he said that Too Yumm! is the fastest growing FMCG brand in India -- the start has been great and the month-on-month growth is excellent. “We would like to continue delivering similar kind of month-on-month growth in the next year as well to stay the course on the RPSG-FMCG overall ambition to reach Rs 10,000 crore by 2025,” he added.

Brand Too Yumm!, clocks sales of around Rs 25-30 crore a month (as per Nielsen). Given the growth that the brand is experiencing, they are aiming to double in another year.

Too Yumm! has reached a direct distribution of over 2.5 lakh outlets and the brand is present in over 200 cities/towns. The brand’s focus is on SEC A/B/C urban population. With the launch of Karare, a more familiar product for the masses, the brand hopes to expand further into more upcountry markets and grow its distribution.

“We have also started to cater to wholesale as we are experiencing demand there as well. We are not focusing on rural with Too Yumm! right now, but our brand, Evita, does exactly that, and is also growing well,” said Bokey.

The brand has also launched the Rs 5 packs starting with Karare. It is helping the company drive distribution significantly in metros and also in upcountry markets. Bokey said that it is still early days to share contribution as the distribution of the Rs 5 packs is still building.

The belly of the Indian snacking markets is made of Rs 5 and Rs 10 packs and Too Yumm!’s contribution is on similar lines. The brand’s eventual sales skew would be similar, but in the initial years, large pack contribution is expected to be higher due to its great presence in modern trade, e-commerce and metros, said Bokey.

The company has not yet actively pursued exports for the brand Too Yumm!, though it has catered to the interest shown by several importers in some relevant markets. The brand has its presence in Singapore, Nepal, Dubai and Oman already through this route. “Over the next few months, we will evaluate this opportunity more holistically,” Bokey pointed out.

Too Yumm! is present on all major e-commerce sites. “As the shoppers there are far more aware and concerned, our brand proposition works best with them. Hence our share is significantly larger there,” Bokey said.

“There are much bigger upsides available in e-commerce and in the coming year, we hope to build stronger partnerships and deliver much better business and shares,” he added.

The Guinness Record

Too Yumm! recently made it to the Guinness World Records for lighting the largest oil lamp (diya) and taking a pledge for good health. The colossal diya was manufactured by Mira Steels in Mumbai, measuring 476.5mm in height, and 2390.6mm in diameter and was installed at the Kumbh Mela 2019 in Prayagraj.

What is the context of Too Yumm! lighting a diya at the Kumbh Festival when it positions itself as baked and not fried? Through this monumental diya, the brand has endeavoured to make a wish for good health for one and all. “‘Being healthier’ forms the very foundation of Too Yumm! and conveying our brand message through disruptive ideas has always been the plan --  be it through the #WhyChipsVirat campaign and recently with this largest diya,” said Bokey.

“The underlying message behind lighting a diya was to seed in the idea that oil is good for the diya, but too much of it is bad for health (fried). We lit the world’s largest diya to disruptively land the message, and encouraged consumers to take a #SayNoToFriedSnacks’ pledge,” he added.

A few TVCs of the brand Too Yumm!:

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