- Modern Foods acquired a 75 percent stake in Supreme Baker, which markets and sells Citi Fresh and Topsim Food by. The company is promoted by Mahesh Kumar, Ramesh Kumar Batra, and Kshitiz Batra.
- This acquisition is seen as a move by Modern Foods’ to re-enter the huge and attractive Delhi-NCR market.
Modern Foods backed by private equity firm Everstone Capital is ready to make a comeback to the Delhi-NCR after almost 14 years with the acquisition of majority stake in the Delhi-based Supreme Baker India Pvt. Ltd.
Modern Foods acquired a 75 percent stake in Supreme Baker, which markets and sells Citi Fresh and Topsim Food by. The company is promoted by Mahesh Kumar, Ramesh Kumar Batra, and Kshitiz Batra. The value of the transaction is still undisclosed.
This acquisition is seen as a move by Modern Foods’ to re-enter the huge and attractive Delhi-NCR market.
The chief executive officer of Modern Foods, Aseem Soni told, ” Modern was always truly a pan-India brand until 2005 when the owner back then Hindustan Unilever Limited (HUL), decided to keep the brand out from a few markets which included Delhi. “Our strategy is now to re-enter the Delhi-NCR market which is one of the largest markets in India with 1.2 million bread loaves sold every day.” It also makes sense that they are entering the market by acquiring a brand because Modern does not have manufacturing units in the region.
Source- Modern Foods.
Modern Foods was owned by the Central government when Hindustan Unilever Limited (HUL) took over in 2000. Everstone Group’s packaged food platform Everfoods had acquired the bread and bakery business of HUL in April 2016.
When at the peak, Modern Foods had more than 40 percent share of the bread market in India. It has expanded its product ranges with chapattis, parathas, rusks, cakes, buns, pavs, muffins and cream rolls, besides health and wellness bread.
“We want to stay with the brands built by Supreme Baker, as they already have a customer franchise. We also want to continue to build on that, and are also looking to reach 100% capacity utilization of their two plants in Delhi to reach 200,000 loaves per day, by mid-2020,” said Soni.
Modern Foods will be competing with two major bread brands- Harvest Gold and Mrs. Bector’s English Oven which have the largest market share in Delhi-NCR. Oven Fresh and Britannia are the other brands operating the region
Soni also mentioned, ” We want to emerge as a significant challenger to these two existing brands which currently operate in the Delhi-NCR market. We have noticed that whenever we have offered a more relevant portfolio to our customers in any market, we are able to gain the market share faster than the others due to stronger customer connect with the brand. We plan to do the same in Delhi NCR.”
Modern Foods’ bread and bakery products are manufactured and marketed across India through a network of more than 40 manufacturing plants and more than 80,000 outlets. The company is present in over 15 states including 16 metros and mini-metros. The company distributes more than 550,000 loaves daily. Modern is the top brand in most of the southern states, including Tamil Nadu, Telangana, Kerala, and Karnataka with up to 60 percent market share.
