Maiyas will double revenue this year: CEO Vivek Abrol

Bengaluru-headquartered Maiyas Beverages & Foods Pvt Ltd is gearing up to unveil a handful of products over the next three months. The move is part of the strategy being executed by CEO Vivek Abrol, who took over the reins of the Rs 100-crore company a year ago. He says the company — founded by industry veteran Sadananda Maiya — is in the midst of adding many consumer-friendly products. Excerpts:

What are the main initiatives that you took after coming on board?

When I joined Maiyas a year ago, we were primarily a Karnataka-centric organisation. One of the key challenges was how to scale up brand Maiyas in Karnataka and beyond. Among the first things I did was to bring in a committed team which was ready to take on the challenges head on. It took a few months to get the team together in sales, marketing, finance, and supply chain, which helped ramp up the infrastructure and presence across all southern states and select markets from the western zone. We have increased our outlet coverage by ‘5x’ from what we were a year ago.

The other important intervention has been in the area of product development. As one can appreciate, every state in India has varied consumer tastes and preferences. For instance, the ‘sambar’ blend of spice in Karnataka is different from that of Tamil Nadu and Kerala. So, we started investing in consumer research. We are in the midst of adding many more exciting products, which are strongly differentiated and are in sync with the consumer needs.

Could you elaborate on the product innovation initiatives?

Fifty per cent of the population today is under 30 years and there is an increasing proportion of working women with a higher disposable household income. There is transformation one can see in the consumption pattern with an increased preference for convenient food and emergence of ready-to-eat and ready-to-cook categories.  ‘1 Minute Rasam’ is our first such product innovation launched in Karnataka with a promise to deliver the same authentic rasam to the consumer within a minute.  Over the next three months, consumers would be experiencing exciting new launches across categories, which I believe are breakthrough innovations and will disrupt the category codes.

How has the season been in terms of sales? What are the strategies being applied for further growth?

This season has been extremely exciting for us, especially our traditional sweets portfolio which grew manifold. In the past couple of months, we have been growing over 100 per cent compared to the previous seasons and the sweets segment has been at the forefront of growth. We have refreshed our sweets portfolio with new packaging designs which have been received well by the consumer. We would continue to focus on building the brand, investing in distribution and launching exciting and differentiated product segments to grow disproportionately.

Are you looking at the north Indian market?

We started operations last year in all southern states and we are on track. We have also made good progress in Western geography (primarily Maharashtra). However, we have just touched the tip of the iceberg and there’s lot more to be done. Next one year, we would strengthen our presence in south and western geographies before heading the north and east.

How strong are you in the Karnataka market?

We operate in four large categories in Karnataka — spices, savories, instant mixes and sweets and have market shares of 10 per cent each in the categories we operate in.