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<ul><li>Cargill is the maker of brands like <keyword id="944872" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="naturefresh" source="Orion">NatureFresh</keyword>, <keyword id="6358520" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="gemini" source="Orion">Gemini</keyword>, <keyword id="175574" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="sweekar" source="Orion">Sweekar</keyword> and Leonardo.</li><li>We speak to <keyword id="5222174" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="piyush-patnaik" source="Orion">Piyush Patnaik</keyword>, Managing Director, Cargill oil business in India about the pandemic's impact on their business and how they are working towards creating a portfolio of products that caters to the rapidly changing consumer needs.</li></ul>It was in 1987 that US-based Cargill entered India. In the last 34 years, the maker of brands like NatureFresh, Gemini, Sweekar and Leonardo is now further diversifying after listening to its consumers and working on coming up with a range of bakery products. There has also been a visible move towards healthier offerings. Even before the pandemic hit us, Cargill had started its journey of healthifying its products, which has worked in its favor in the last 1.5 years. In a recent chat with Piyush Patnaik, Managing Director, Cargill oil business in India, we tried to understand how things have been for the brand since the pandemic and the lockdown, what their outlook is for the upcoming festive season and how they are working on bringing in the next phase of growth in India. Excerpts: Q) The last 18 months have been difficult for businesses the world over. What kind of an impact did the pandemic and the ensuing lockdown have on your business? There are three parts to our business, one goes into households through traditional channels. We also have a large presence in food services, essentially for out-of-home consumption. And the third part of our business is supplying to our large B2B players. The last 18 months have been tough. However, it was a mixed bag for the overall business. For the consumer retail business, it was a tailwind but for the food service business, it was a clear and massive headwind. For the B2B segment, it was a mixed bag. The challenge was more on the operations side. However, due to the kind of portfolio we have, there was still consumption and we had less reasons to complain about than a lot of other players in the segment. Q) What do you think are a few factors that helped you sail through, relatively unscathed? As a company, we are very resilient. Our risk management processes, that have been built over 150 years, are a part of our core strength. During those difficult times, our supply chain never got disrupted. Secondly, we have clear market leadership in certain markets and it was easier to get back on track there. That helped the overall business. Thirdly, we took a few steps from our team’s side that really helped. For example, we were all operating in difficult environments, through a certain set of policies, we tried to facilitate movement of our people, additional safety measures for our teams and that helped us get back to the market faster than many of our competitors and we could get into deeper markets sooner. So it was a combination of our structural risk management practices built over years, our strong financial strength and the fact that we didn't have any break in our supply chain during this tough period. Q) What sort of a growth trajectory were you on before the pandemic hit? Are you back to pre-pandemic numbers? No, we are still not back to pre-Covid numbers but we are on a positive trajectory. We were in the typical FMCG growth bracket before Covid, and there has been a slowdown. We expect growth to kick in as we get into the festive season. Q) So you expect a good festive season this year? We definitely expect good demand in the festive season this year. We can already see green shoots of that in some markets. Also, the trade is very clearly positioning itself for higher throughput over the next four to six weeks. Q) The pandemic led to very rapid changes in consumer behavior. How did that reflect on your offerings? Did you come up with new products to cater to this changing consumer behavior? We were very lucky on that front. Over the last few years, there has been a massive conversion from loose, unpackaged products to packaged products across all categories and edible oil was ahead of the curve. Other than that, there has been a clear demand for healthier everyday food products. Covid amplified both trends across the staples category. Just around the time Covid hit, we had launched a few products like Gemini Rice Brand Oil and NatureFresh Acti Heart, which were healthier offerings. Both these products benefited from the trends. The fact that our <keyword id="12272720" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="naturefresh-atta" source="Orion">NatureFresh Atta</keyword> is positioned around high fiber again got traction. Since we have been talking about the importance of health in everyday life for Gemini, NatureFresh and <keyword id="12272721" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="leonardo-brands" source="Orion">Leonardo brands</keyword>, we could clearly see traction. Another change we witnessed was that indulgence moved home. We saw a lot of nice consumer interactions and uptake increase for heritage brands like <keyword id="6358640" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="rath" source="Orion">Rath</keyword> and <keyword id="1481404" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="sunflower-vanaspati" source="Orion">Sunflower Vanaspati</keyword>, products that are traditionally used either during festivals or for out-of-home consumption, for making sweets and Indian delicacies. And the fact that the government is slowly moving towards create awareness around trans fat reduction is also helping. We’re seeing a newfound attraction towards traditional fats which has been really helpful in the last 18 months. Q) Has this movement towards packaged products been faster in smaller cities? A lot of growth in the area is being driven by smaller cities. We are seeing faster conversion in Tier III and IV cities. Q) You have had a bakery ingredients business for a while now. Since the lockdown encouraged people to turn bakers at home, did you see any increase in demand? Our bakery goods were designed for large bakery goods customers like biscuit players. It used to be more B2B but over the last five years, we have built a nice business around NatureFresh professional portfolio of bakery ingredients which plays into the street corner artisan bakers. Today, we reach about 5,500 bakers daily. Since a lot of these shops stopped operating in the last 18-24 months, people wanted to have fresh freshly baked products at home. We had a product called <keyword id="10285577" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="naturefresh-professional-lite" source="Orion">NatureFresh Professional Lite</keyword>, a multi-purpose specialized pack for making cookies and cakes. We put it on e-commerce and saw a lot of traction. Wizened by that experience, we are now creating a larger basket of portfolio for the homemaker segment. The segment is witnessing phenomenal growth but it is still a very small percentage of our overall business. However, it seems like the growth is here to stay. Q) Usually a crisis leads to a cut in marketing and advertising budgets. How was it for Cargill? We are a bit of an outlier there. We have significantly expanded our communication projects, we are not looking at reduction, rather we are looking at increasing our investments, both across the Gemini and NatureFresh portfolio. As brands that are a part of people’s everyday lives, this is the time for increased conversations. We are doing multi-pronged conversations. Of course electronic media continues to stay the most relevant for larger reach, but we're amplifying it both through Digital and now through Print too. Q) How are you expanding your reach and going deeper into the country? We are expanding in two ways. We have expanded our manufacturing capacity significantly over the last 18-24 months And even during this period, we have expanded into many new towns within the geographies we operate in. Of course, we will keep expanding our product portfolio too.

Here’s how Cargill is listening to its consumers and coming up with products to best cater to evolving consumer needs

(Eds: Adding details) New Delhi, Mar 18 () The Centre is closely monitoring the prices of soaps, floor cleaners and thermal scanners because of surge in demand of these items amid growing coronavirus cases in the country, Union Minister Ram Vilas Paswan said on Wednesday. Normally, the Consumer Affairs Ministry keeps track of prices of 22 essential commodities. Recently, the ministry included face masks and hand sanitizers under the Essential Commodities Act. "We are monitoring prices of three more products -- soap, floor and hand cleaners like Lizol and Dettol as well as thermal scanners whose demand has gone up because of coronavirus scare," Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution Minister Paswan told . The prices of these products will be monitored from 114 centres across the country. Paswan said the government will bring these three products under the Essential Commodities Act if their prices shoot up from the level which prevailed in the last six months. Hand sanitizers and face masks are now essential items, and stringent action will be taken against those hoarding and black marketing these products, he added. The minister said the government will monitor more products in the coming days if prices go up substantially. The 22 commodities which the government monitors includes five items groups -- food grains (rice, wheat, atta), pulses (gram, tur, urad, moong, masur), edible oils (groundnut oil, mustard oil, vanaspati, soya oil, sunflower oil, palm oil), vegetables (potato, onion, tomato) and other items (sugar, gur, milk, tea, salt). According to Paswan, there is high awareness about COVID-19 (coronavirus) outbreak among people, and the severity of outbreak in India is less as compared with other countries. "There is no need to panic, although we need to follow all precautionary measures to protect ourselves," he said. At Shastri Bhawan here, where Paswan's office is housed, the minister has installed hand sanitizer dispenser at entry and exit gates. Thermal scanning of visitors is also been done. LUX RVK

Govt monitoring prices of soaps, floor cleaners, thermal scanners, says Paswan

New Delhi, Nov 28 () Onion prices remain high across the major cities of the country as the average selling price ruled at Rs 70 per kg on Thursday while the maximum rate of Rs 110 per kg was recorded in Panaji, according to official data.
 The lowest price of Rs 38 per kg of the bulb was reported from Gwalior in Madhya Pradesh, the Consumer Affairs Ministry data showed.
 Among the four metros, onion is being sold at Rs 76 per kg in the national capital, Rs 92 in Mumbai, Rs 100 per kg in Kolkata and Rs 80 per kg in Chennai.
 The ministry monitors prices of 22 essential commodities (rice, wheat, atta, gram dal, tur (arhar) dal, urad dal , moong dal, masur dal, sugar, gur, groundnut oil, mustard oil, vanaspati, sunflower oil, soya oil, palm oil, tea, milk, potato, onion, tomato and salt) based on data collected from 109 market centres spread across the country.
 Interestingly, a pricey onion seems to be catching the attention of thieves as an employee of a vegetable vendor in Surat said that someone stole 250 kg of the bulb worth Rs 25,000 from their shop in the early hours of the day.
 On Wednesday, the government extended prohibitions on traders from the stocking of edible bulb across the country for an indefinite period.
 The stock holding limit was imposed in September. At present, retailers can stock onion only up to 100 quintals and wholesale traders are allowed to keep up to 500 quintals.
 Food and Consumer Affairs Minister Ram Vilas Paswan on Wednesday had asserted that the government was making maximum efforts to control prices.
 Besides stock holding limit, he said, the Centre has banned exports of onion and importing 1.2 lakh tonnes to control prices.
 State-owned MMTC has informed that the first shipment of onions from Egypt would arrive in the second week of December. The public sector trading firm has contracted imports of 6,090 tonnes of onions.
 Expressing concern over the price rise, Paswan had said the situation is being closely monitored by a team of five Union ministers chaired by Home Minister Amit Shah. Finance minister, agriculture minister and road transport minister are also members of the group of ministers.
 The group of ministers has already held one meeting and another one will be held soon, he said.
 On November 19, Paswan had said onion production in Kharif and late-Kharif seasons of 2019-20 is estimated to fall 26 per cent to 5.2 million tonnes due to a delayed monsoon and then excessive rains in key growing areas.
 The buffer stock of 57,000 tonnes of onions has been liquidated and therefore the Centre decided to import. MJH MJH MR
MR

Onion prices remain high, soar to Rs 110/kg in Panaji

New Delhi, Dec 1 () State-owned trading firm MMTC, which is importing onion on the behalf of the Centre, has placed an order of 11,000 tonnes of edible bulb from Turkey as part of its efforts to boost domestic supply and ease soaring prices, sources said.
This is the second import order placed by the MMTC. The public sector firm is already importing 6,090 tonnes from Egypt.
Last month, the Union Cabinet approved importing 1.2 lakh tonnes of onion to improve the domestic supply and control prices that have skyrocketed to Rs 75-120 per kg across major cities now. The Centre has already banned exports and imposed stockholding limit on wholesalers and retailers for indefinite period.
According to sources, MMTC has contracted 11,000 tonnes of onion imports from Turkey and the consignments are expected in January next year. 
 The company had placed an order for the first consignment of 6,090 tonnes of onion from Egypt which will be arriving at Nhava Sheva (JNPT), Mumbai in the second week of this month. The imported onion is being offered to state governments for distribution at the rate of Rs 52-55 per kg ex-Mumbai and Rs 60 per kg ex-Delhi.
To monitor onion prices, a Group of Ministers, chaired by Home Minister Amit Shah, has already been constituted. Finance minister, consumer affairs minister, agriculture minister and road transport minister are also members of this panel. A Committee of Secretaries (CoS) and Consumer Affairs Secretary Avinash K Srivastava is also constantly reviewing the situation.
Onion prices remain high across the major cities of the country as the average selling price ruled at Rs 75 per kg on Saturday (November 30) while the maximum rate of Rs 120 per kg was recorded in Mayabunder, according to the data compiled by the Consumer Affairs ministry.
On November 19, Food and Consumer Affairs Minister Ram Vilas Paswan had said onion production in kharif and late-kharif seasons of 2019-20 is estimated to fall 26 per cent to 5.2 million tonne.
Onion is a seasonal crop with harvesting period of (March to June), kharif (October to December) and late-kharif (January-March). During July to October, the supply in the market comes from stored onions from rabi (winter-sown) season. 
"During 2019-20, there was a 3-4 weeks delay in sowing as well as decline in sown area of the kharif onion because of late arrival of monsoon. Further, untimely prolonged rains in the major growing states of Karnataka, Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh during the harvesting period caused damage to the standing crops in these regions," Paswan had said.
"It's not in our hand, the government is making maximum efforts but who can win from nature," he recently told reporters when asked by when onion prices will come down to reasonable level.
According to the consumer affairs ministry data, onion is being sold at Rs 76 per kg in the national capital, Rs 82 in Mumbai, Rs 90 per kg in Kolkata and Rs 80 per kg in Chennai. 
The lowest price of Rs 42 per kg of the bulb was reported from Gwalior in Madhya Pradesh and Vijaywada, the data showed.
The ministry monitors prices of 22 essential commodities (rice, wheat, atta, gram dal, tur (arhar) dal, urad dal , moong dal, masur dal, sugar, gur, groundnut oil, mustard oil, vanaspati, sunflower oil, soya oil, palm oil, tea, milk, potato, onion, tomato and salt) based on data collected from 109 market centres spread across the country. MJH MJH MR
MR

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Here’s how Cargill is listening to its consumers and coming up with products to best cater to evolving consumer needs

Samarpita Banerjee

Govt monitoring prices of soaps, floor cleaners, thermal scanners, says Paswan

PTI

Onion prices remain high, soar to Rs 110/kg in Panaji

PTI

MMTC signs 2nd onion import order, to buy 11,000tn from Turkey

PTI

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