Britannia to invest Rs. 900 crore on new greenfield plants, innovation.

Britannia will invest Rs. 900 crore in setting up fresh manufacturing and research and development facilities over the next two years, in what will be its biggest single tranche of investments in a two-year time frame.

'There's momentum in the business now...we are selling a million tonnes of products and are looking to scale up,' said Varun Berry, managing director at Britannia Industries, a Wadia Group company.

The maker of Good Day and NutriChoice biscuits, which competes with Parle and ITC and posted volume growth of 11% in the quarter ended December 2015, will make fresh investments in biscuits, cake, rusk and dairy, he said. The investments will include Rs. 300 crore on diary as stated by Wadia group chairman Nusli Wadia. Berry said majority of the Rs. 900 crore investments will be infused in large greenfield plants. 'We are setting up high technology lines to make disruptive products across categories. For many years, we didn't have disruptive innovation and we have some catching up to do,' he said.

Besides new plants in Tamil Nadu and Karnataka, the Bengaluru-based firm plans to set up new manufacturing units in Guwahati, Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra. For exports, it is looking to set up a site in Gujarat. Additional lines will be added in existing plants too, the company said.

ET