ITC Ltd, which is 30.8% owned by British American Tobacco, sells around 80% of the cigarettes sold to India’s estimated 275 million smokers, but the Health Ministry is proposing more clamps on the use of tobacco and more stringent anti-smoking regulations – hence the venture into health and nutrition product.
“Indians are turning health-conscious in their food choices, so health and nutrition will be a very strong focus area for us in the coming years,” said Chitranjan Dar, chief executive of ITC Foods, in a Reuters phone interview.
ITC, India’s fifth most valuable company with a market capitalisation of $38bn already makes cookies, crackers and potato chips, but healthy food marks a sharp turn for a company which is best known for cigarettes.
Although ITC moved into the food business a decade ago, cigarettes account for half the company’s revenue, and even its initials are a throwback to its century-old roots when it was known as Imperial Tobacco.
Source: Reuters/Truthdive/Economic Times
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