Adani Wilmar's Fortune enjoys the trust of millions of consumers as it resonates strongly with home cooking and is committed to maintaining the highest standards of quality.
Apart from edible oils that meet diverse consumer preferences and build strong brand loyalty, the brand's diversification into products like rice, wheat flour, and pulses has broadened its consumer base, ensuring it remains integral to everyday meals. Adani Wilmar's range of regional brands also helps compete with the regional players and penetrate the deeper markets.
In a chat with Mukesh Mishra, Senior Vice-President, Sales & Marketing, Adani Wilmar, he explains how the brand builds trust among its consumers by communicating its commitment to stringent quality checks and maintaining the highest standards at every stage of manufacturing.
Excerpts:
Q. How is product diversification a key component to meet your category's evolving consumer needs and preferences?
Adani Wilmar offers a wide range of Fortune brand oils, catering to diverse culinary preferences and ensuring strong consumer loyalty.
Addressing health awareness, options like heart-healthy Fortune rice bran oil and vitamin-rich soyabean oil and sunflower oil to meet specific nutritional needs. Adani Wilmar also respects regional culinary traditions, offering popular choices like mustard oil in the North and sunflower oil in the South and West.
Innovation includes blends such as Fortune Xpert Oil, combining rice bran, flaxseeds and soyabean oils for balanced nutrition. Premium offerings like first pressed mustard oil Fortune Pehli Dhaar appeal to consumers seeking high quality and unique flavours. By staying agile and responsive to market trends, Adani Wilmar continues to lead in meeting consumer demands across India’s dynamic edible oil market.
Q. With a household reach of 253 mn, how has Fortune transformed itself into one of India's most recognised household brands through innovation and adapting to market changes?
We continuously focus on understanding and analysing consumer preferences, allowing Fortune to stay responsive and adapt to changing trends. This proactive approach ensures that there is a consistent response to consumer needs which is driving sustained growth and success. We have recognised a significant opportunity for growth in the branded food segment and, therefore, prioritising product diversification and innovation to meet the evolving demands of consumers.
Our strategy is centred around improving our distribution network to ensure wider and more efficient reach. We are planning to significantly ramp up our direct distribution capabilities. Our goal is to extend our direct distribution coverage to one million outlets by FY27. We will continue our focus on enhancing our reach in rural markets.
We have also adopted a multi-faceted approach by focusing on building authentic storytelling that connects with people on a personal level. Keeping the regional preferences in mind, we have crafted some interesting campaigns with which the local audience relates well. For example, Adani Wilmar's decision to launch special packs for Durga Puja is deeply rooted in a profound understanding of the festival's cultural significance in West Bengal. Pet Pujo campaigns during Durga Pujo signify the rich culture of the Bengali community and have successfully built a bridge between the brand and the people, forging a personal connection that goes beyond mere products. Similarly, during the recent pickle season, Adani Wilmar Limited hosted on-ground events in Lucknow and Patna as part of a dedicated campaign. These events aimed to educate participants about using the right ingredients and creating easy pickle recipes using Fortune Mustard Oil, celebrating the tradition of homemade pickles. Our marketing approach is rooted in our deep understanding of diverse cultural and regional nuances of culinary preferences across India.
Q. What communication strategies typically work for Fortune to achieve recognition and trust among consumers and retail partners alike?
At Fortune, we ensure consistent brand messaging across all channels, emphasising our commitment to quality, health and trust. This builds a strong, reliable brand image that consumers and retail partners recognise and trust.
We use a mix of traditional and digital media, including TV, print and social media, to connect with a wide audience. We emphasise the importance of home-cooked meals, relating to the traditional Indian philosophy of wholesome, nutritious, and lovingly prepared food. This resonates deeply with our consumers and reinforces their trust in Fortune as a brand that supports healthy, home-cooked meals. We have been implementing various initiatives to enhance Fortune’s market presence and competitiveness. These include catering to regional tastes by adapting products to match regional preferences, strengthening the brand identity of Fortune expanding its reach in urban and rural areas, and constantly exploring new ideas and products to maintain freshness and excitement. Our marketing campaigns are also aligned to connect better with the regional audience. We did a campaign, titled ‘Achaar Ka Perfect Jodidaar,’, that served as a homage to the nostalgia associated with pickle making. Through evocative storytelling, we showcased the role that Fortune Kachi Ghani Mustard Oil plays in preserving this cherished tradition. Similarly, we aligned activities with the recent consecration of Ram Mandir in Ayodhya. We invest heavily in below-the-line (BTL) activities to enhance our visibility where it matters.
Q. Can you also give us a sense of your marketing budget and the media that work best for you? Additionally, how much does the edible oil portfolio contribute to the company’s overall business growth?
At Adani Wilmar, we allocate a significant portion of our marketing budget to both traditional and digital media. Television and print media continue to be effective in reaching a broad audience, while digital platforms, including social media, allow us to engage with a younger, tech-savvy demographic. Our spend on digital media has increased in the last few years.
The edible oil portfolio is a major contributor to Adani Wilmar's overall business growth. As the flagship product category, it accounted for 61 per cent of our total volume by FY24.
Q. How do you address consumer concerns about health and sustainability in your marketing messages?
At Adani Wilmar, we prioritise keeping our consumers informed about the health benefits of our products. We ensure hygienic production processes with stringent quality checks and minimal human intervention, assuring consumers of our product quality. Simultaneously, we also communicate to our consumers about the ill effects of constantly reusing cooking oils and how it is linked with various critical illnesses. We communicate these standards across various platforms to reinforce trust in our brand.
Recognising the importance of sustainability, we highlight that nearly 98 per cent of our packaging is recyclable, and we collect 100 per cent of plastic packaging waste nationwide, making us a plastic-neutral company. Additionally, our flagship CSR initiative, Fortune SuPoshan, addresses malnutrition and anaemia, with details about this mission prominently featured on our product packaging.
These efforts reinforce our commitment to quality, sustainability and social responsibility, ensuring that consumers can make informed choices while supporting meaningful causes through our products.
Q. What do you see as some of the biggest challenges in marketing edible oils and how do you overcome them?
It becomes a daunting task as a national player in the edible oil market to cater to regional preferences across the country. Our high dependency on imported oils is another challenge in marketing edible oil as global factors govern the supply chain. Indian edible oil market relies heavily on imported oils and the supply chain is heavily influenced by global geopolitical factors which poses challenges in maintaining consistent supplies and prices.
Q. As you mentioned, geopolitical situations often impact the FMCG markets (including oil sectors) across nations, as we recently saw during the Ukraine-Russia war. What is your action plan during such situations?
We meticulously monitor geopolitical developments to evaluate their potential impact on our supply chain, market dynamics, and overall business operations. With the support of our co-promoter Wilmar International, which operates globally, we leverage their insights to make informed decisions during crises. Adapting swiftly, we adjust our market strategies to align with evolving consumer demands and purchasing behaviours amid geopolitical events.
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