Manoj Verma, Chief Operating Officer (COO) of Bikaji Namkeen, popular in India, told Dainik Bhaskar that the company’s results in the fourth quarter were as per our expectations. Apart from this, Manoj Verma has shared many things related to the company’s future plans, products, sales and business expansion. Read the full interview… How did the company perform in the fourth quarter of FY 2024-25? The company has performed much better on a quarterly basis in the fourth quarter of FY 2024-25. Good growth has also been seen in gross margin and EBITDA margin. These results have been as per our expectations. We will improve it further in the future. Our operational revenue is not flat in the fourth quarter. Actually, this is seen due to PLI. We had recorded three years of PLI revenue in the base quarter. If you remove that, we have registered more than 14% quarterly growth in revenue top line. FD investment is included in other income in the company’s business. The company’s volume grew by 8.9% year-on-year in the fourth quarter. But due to one-time PLI adjustment in the base quarter, revenue from operations remained stable at Rs 613.6 crore on an annual basis. EBITDA stood at Rs 74.3 crore with a margin of 12.1%. At the same time, profit after tax (PAT) stood at Rs 39.9 crore. What are the company’s future plans? Our focus is currently on expanding our main business traditional snacks. Apart from this, we will strengthen the business in our focused states. Then some of these states will shift to our core states, so we will add more focus states in future. Right now, growing regular business is our priority. Which states is the company targeting in the future? The company has added a lot of manufacturing capacity in the last 2-3 years. Apart from this, if we talk about products, it is a regular process. Because the company launches something on a regular basis and some are also discontinued from the market. All these are regular processes. Talking about the business vertical, we have started our expansion in retail. We have recently opened a store in Sikar. Right now, we are more focused on the big states in which we are present. Apart from this, we are a pan India brand and we have presence in almost every state. Right now we are focusing on big states as per the strategy. These states include UP, Delhi, Haryana, Punjab, Karnataka and Chhattisgarh. Which is the company’s best selling product? Out of all our products, traditional snacks Bhujia Namkeen have the highest contribution of 70% in the company’s sales. The company’s maximum sales are in Rajasthan, Assam and Bihar states, whose contribution to revenue is 70%. The rest of the sales come from our focus and other states. Apart from the existing products, what new is the company going to bring in the market? Right now we have no plans to launch a new product in the market. After the remaining two quarters, the team will decide whether to launch a new product in the market or not. What challenges does the company face from a storage perspective? We have our own manufacturing facility. We have depots in every state. Apart from this, the shelf life of our products is six months, but after our products are manufactured in the market, they are consumed within a month. According to this, our products are quite fresh, so we do not face any challenge from a storage perspective. What is the impact of competitors on the company’s market? Our market competitors in Pan India are Haldiram, Pratap Snacks and Lays. There is no impact on our market due to competitors. In the last quarter, the demand was a little low, but right now the company does not face any challenge from a demand perspective.
