He said the company’s Life Sciences and Technology Centre (LSTC) has been mandated to develop future ready products and processes. Around 830 patents have already been filed. “Your company (ITC) is engaging with start-up ecosystem and, wherever appropriate, making investments,” he said. To cut down on imports and create livelihood opportunities by promoting bamboo cultivation in India, the company is in the process of building a “bamboo-to-agarbatti value chain” anchored by the Mangaldeep brand. It has already established an all-women nursery in Tripura.

“Currently 180 billion bamboo sticks are imported to India for the agarbatti industry. Substitution of bamboo imports with domestic cultivation has the potential to generate employment opportunities of around 22 million person days per annum, translating to additional farmer income of around Rs 1,300 crore,” he said.

Mr Puri said ITC is making substantive investments to expand its formidable distribution network through which it places products in over six million retail outlets. It is also developing alternate and emerging channels such as modern trade, on-the-go food services, end-to-end cold chain and e-commerce, among others.

He said the integrated fruits, vegetables and perishables value chain has enabled the company to foray into new segments with a wide range of offerings including frozen food, dehydrated onions, potatoes, mango pulp and prawns.

The company is pumping in money to build a state-of-the-art manufacturing infrastructure across India for rapid growth of its FMCG businesses, and establish an extremely competitive supply chain in order to contribute to the country’s Make in India vision.

“The 20 Integrated Consumer Goods Manufacturing and Logistics (ICML) facilities being progressively built will provide formidable strength to the company’s FMCG brands by enhancing cost efficiency, economies of scale, freshness and close-to-market distribution,” he said.