Won't comment on BigBasket deal; evaluating all opportunities: Tata Consumer

“As and when we find a fit and reach a definitive agreement, we will come back,” he said in an interview with CNBC-TV18.

Tata Consumer is listed on Big Basket and sell a lot of products though the online platform.

“March quarter, we ended 2.5 percent of our sales going through online. Right now we are heading towards 5-6 percent of sales. We are seeing the strong momentum continue,” he said.

On food and beverages, he said, “We did have good set of results for Q2, we are quite happy with the numbers. As the lockdown has opened up, we are seeing traction coming across both for our core categories as well as our out-of-home businesses. In tea we are seeing the category come back to double-digit volume growth, we are outpacing the industry. Same thing on the food space, Sampann business is outgrowing total food business by 3X. So we are seeing good growth in all the new categories that we have entered. In terms of out-of-home we are seeing sequential improvement.”

“We will continue to target double digit growth,” he said.

On tea prices, D’Souza said they have been moving in a narrow range. “We have predictability of where the prices are going and therefore ability to translate those costs into prices making sure we walk the fine-line between margins, demand elasticity as well as market share. We have been able to do that,” he said.

On the coffee side of the business, Eight O'Clock Coffee is seeing good momentum.

“Lot of innovation going behind the brand and we are seeing volume traction in the international numbers, which came out last quarter. On the domestic side, Tata Coffee which is the subsidiary is primarily a B2B business and we are seeing some softness in Europe with out-of-home consumption. However, we remain confident that as and when the unlock happens and as long as the consumer comes back we remain on a strong footing,” he said.

Due to COVID, the consumer is gravitating towards the trusted brands and Starbucks is up there, he said. “We continue to open outlets, we have 201 outlets, during the pandemic we remained focused on opening outlets, number of outlets opened this year might be equal to what we opened last year,” D’Souza said.