Retail meets yoga: Future Group ties up with Baba Ramdev’s Patanjali

Retail major Future Group today entered into a partnership with Yoga guru Baba Ramdev-promoted Patanjali Ayurved to sell the latter's consumer products through its stores with plans for joint manufacturing in future.

Patanjali's range of FMCG products, including staples, nutrition, hair care, skin care, dental care and toiletries, will be sold through Future Group's Big Bazaar, KB's and EasyDay outlets across India.

The Kishore Biyani-led Future Group expects sales from Patanjali, which is set to launch noodles next week to take advantage of the space vacated by Nestle's Maggi, to the tune of Rs1,000 crore in the next 20 months.

 "In total, we will have Rs30-40 crore business (from Patanjali products) in a month from our stores and later on, it will increase up to Rs80 crore," Biyani told reporters in New Delhi.

He said the business of established FMCG player Hindustan Unilever Ltd is around Rs1,300-1,400 crore from Future Group's stores.

"I believe that Patanjali products could easily achieve that," Biyani said, adding that Patanjali is on the list of top five FMCG companies of India already, and "They (Patanjali) have a chance to be at number two or three in the next one or two years."

On the possibility of joining hands for manufacturing, Biyani said, "We have a lot of capacity and huge space at our food park.

''Similarly, Baba Ramdev has 175-acre space. Through that, we can produce items worth Rs10,000 crore together."

Commenting on Future Group's growth prospects, he said, "We are looking at 20-25 per cent growth this fiscal. As a group, we will make around Rs22,000-23,000 crore revenue this year."

Biyani said the group will continue to add up to 30 stores every year.

Announcing plans to enter the noodles segment, Baba Ramdev said, "Our effort is to promote swadeshi and give a tough fight to MNCs. We will launch our noodles in the market by 15 October and it will be available across India by the end of this month."

He said Patanjali is also planning to launch products like pasta, oats, juices and muesli soon and is targeting to achieve Rs 5,000 crore turnover this fiscal.

He added that Patanjali Ayurved will also increase the number of its production units in different parts of India, including South India, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan, among others, but did not share investments details.