Britannia Industries reports 23 pc drop in Sep qtr net profit at Rs 381.84 cr

The company had posted a net profit of Rs 495.20 crore in the July-September quarter a year ago, Britannia Industries said in a BSE filing.

Its total revenue from operations was up 5.5 per cent to Rs 3,607.37 crore during the quarter under review as against Rs 3,419.11 crore in the year-ago period.

Britannia Industries Managing Director Varun Berry said: “During the quarter, the impact of the second wave of COVID-19 started receding, and the economic activity started picking up. However, inflationary trends remained rampant around the globe, across sectors.” Britannia Industries’ total expenses were at Rs 3,138.15 crore, up 11.2 per cent in Q2/FY 2021-22, as against Rs 2,822.02 crore in the year-ago period.

While commenting on the cost front, Berry said the company continued to witness supply led constraints across various input materials fuelling inflation.

“As a result, we are witnessing unprecedented inflation in market prices of palm oil @ 54 per cent, industrial fuel @ 35 per cent and packaging materials @ 30 per cent leading to an overall inflation in the quarter of ~14per cent,” he said.

Though Britannia has been able to partially mitigate the impact through strategic forward covers and accelerated cost efficiency programs, it has also initiated “necessary price increases across the portfolio” all of which will address the cost-push and normalise profitability”, he added.

“We are confident that our resilient brands and strategic growth initiatives will hold us on a path of profitable share gain in the future as well,” Berry added.

Shares of Britannia Industries on Monday settled at Rs 3,708 on BSE, up 1.59 per cent from BSE.