Pansari Group’s sales remained unaffected by the pandemic: Shammi Agarwal

Founded in 1940, Pansari Group was built on the fundamentals of safe, healthy and nutritious home-cooked food, offering a range of edible oils, specialty rice & flour products and instant Indian mixes in North India. From the start, they wanted to make cooking a seamless and easy process for everyone. Recently, the brand has been working to build a totally new business model by getting into the HoReCa business. Currently, the company is focusing on diversifying geographically to build a network for their HoReCa products.

In conversation with Adgully, Shammi Agarwal, Director of Pansari Group, elaborates on the growing market space for Pansari Group, while ensuring they stay true to the core and ethical beliefs the business was set up with. He also shared his vision to build a robust digital community that recognises Pansari Group’s products as the solution to home cooking.

Speaking about the pandemic’s impact on the HoReCa industry, Agarwal said that this industry was put in a difficult situation. He noted that nowadays, people eat more at home because they are more health conscious. As a result, there are now only a few competitors left in the market and the supply to HoReCa has also drastically decreased.

Adding further, he said that since the pandemic made people more health conscious, Pansari became the go-to option for many Indian households. The brand has been a one-stop shop for bringing healthier products to consumers – from edible oils to instant mixes made up of ragi and multigrain for several decades.

Pansari’s supply chain network is currently focused on the North India market. The main focus is Delhi NCR, Punjab, Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand. In the future, the company will also focus on expanding to the South and East.

When asked about the pandemic’s impact on the company’s revenues, Agarwal maintained, “Our sales remained unaffected by the Covid-19 pandemic. Instead, we’ve seen an upward growth in revenue and sales. From 2017 to the present, we have been able to generate sales ranging from Rs 473 crore to Rs 1,005 crore. We have also successfully led Pansari to a profit of maximum Rs 4.73 billion from Rs 1.106 billion. Since people were confined to their homes during the pandemic period, our online orders shot up. From our Meethi delicacies to Chatpati treats, families were finding joy in trying a range of their favourite binge-worthy treats without much effort.”

He affirmed that the shift of consumers from B2C and B2B has had minimal impact. “B2B is less than 10% of our business and our focus is more on brand building. Our products are available on online marketplaces such as Blinkit, Amazon, Flipkart, Big Basket, etc., as the brand is not very strong as a direct-to-consumer sale. Only 10% are online, and the rest are offline. While the shift has not impacted our production, we are working hard on both B2C and B2B,” Agarwal added.

When asked whether ready-to-mix foods can stand up to fresh home-cooked food, he replied, “Ready-to-mix products are absolutely healthy. They offer healthy options for consumers looking for alternatives to traditional cooking – which are more time-consuming to prepare – but are unwilling to compromise on health benefits. Pansari has been known for its high-quality standards in the preparation of food. It is only supplied in the market once it qualifies all the safety checks.”

With the festive season at our doors, Pansari is geared up with gift packs for the festive season. These gift baskets will consist of different product ranges – from rice, grains and oil – that each has a greater shelf life and are healthy as well. “The idea behind this is to promote healthy living and clean eating. Festivals are meant to bring us together with our family and loved ones. Pansari gift baskets will help in creating healthy meal times and precious memories,” he elaborated.

Speaking about the distinctive packaging used by Pansari, Agarwal explained that the company’s packaging offered complete protection to the product. He added, “Most importantly, adding protection helps us maintain the shelf life of our product. It protects it from dust, dirt and abrasion. It also gives consumers peace of mind as the zip lock lets people know the product is securely closed and will not get spoilt. Also, our Oreal oil features a measurement scale that makes it easy for our consumers and also ensures that there isn’t any wastage.”

In keeping with the shift to digital, Pansari has been using social media to stay in touch with its customers for all current and new launches.