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Informist, Wednesday, Sept. 17, 2025

 

By Avishek Rakshit

 

KOLKATA – Ganesh Consumer Products Ltd., which is coming out with an initial public offering next week, is banking on its spices business and its planned foray into Bihar and the northeast region to drive future growth, Chairperson and Managing Director Manish Mimani told Informist in an exclusive telephonic conversation.

 

Mimani said the company, which sells branded commodities like flour, gram-flour, semolina and others in West Bengal, Odisha, and Jharkhand, is set to enter Bihar and the northeast region in the current financial year to expand its geographic presence. "We intend to enter Bihar and the northeast within this financial year only," Mimani said. "Basically, foray into east India as a whole will be completed and growth will come from spices also. So, there will be two levers of growth - one geographical expansion and one category expansion."

 

The company is currently setting up its distribution base in these two states and is making arrangements for the logistics to ensure a steady supply of its products. "The supply chain for these markets will be supported from our Agra and Varanasi units, which are logistically nearer to Bihar and northeast," Mimani said. "We want to touch the maximum number of outlets in eastern India. Largely, eastern India is a mom-and-pop kirana story because the modern trade infrastructure is not that heavy in that part of country. And we are a general trade brand - 85% of our total sales are coming from general trade."

 

Currently, the company's distribution network comprises 26 carrying-and-forwarding agents, eight super stockists and 900 distributors who service over 70,000 retail outlets in eastern India. Mimani said that the company is banking on its existing distribution infrastructure to expand its spices business, which it entered in 2023. Although the company has launched several spices, including whole and blended variants, in the spices market in eastern India, which is estimated at INR 60 billion, this business accounts for an insignificant part of the company's business.

 

"Initially, our primary orders by distributors or retailers in spices will not be that big. But by virtue of our core category supply chain and our reach in the retail shops, it will help us at least to place our spices into retail shops, which is an entry barrier for any new category player," Mimani said. "We have got synergies in production, in supply chain - primary supply chain and secondary supply chain - and tertiary supply chain as well.

 

Asked if the company plans to come up with new manufacturing units in Bihar and the northeastern region, Mimani said that it is cost-efficient for the company to have a centralised procurement system, which saves freight and forwarding expenses. It is cost-efficient for the company to ship its products to the northeast from its units in eastern India rather than have a plant there, Mimani said.

 

The company procures wheat – its key raw material – from Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan, which is then sent to its plants in close proximal locations.

 

The company is setting up a new plant in Siliguri in West Bengal for INR 500 million, which will be funded from the proceeds of the upcoming initial public offering. For the next few years, the company does not plan to invest in new plants as capacity utilisation across its seven existing units is only 55%, leaving ample scope to increase output using existing manufacturing units.

 

Mimani said that Ganesh Consumer Products is the market leader in packaged wheat derivative products and the second-largest player in gram-based derivative products in eastern India. However, out of the entire packaged staples market in eastern India, which is estimated at over INR 694 billion, Ganesh Consumer Products' addressable market is around INR 60 billion.

 

In 2024-25 (Apr-Mar), the company reported a net profit of INR 354 million on revenues of INR 8.5 billion.

 

The Initial Public Offering of Ganesh Consumer Products will open for subscription on Sept. 22 and close on Sept. 24. The company, which has set a price band of INR 306-INR 322 per share, is looking to raise a total of INR 4.1 billion through the issue. End

 

IST, or Indian Standard Time, is five-and-a-half hours ahead of GMT

 

Edited by Saji George Titus

 

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