Selling Instant Happiness

When Gits Food launched in 1963 with soups, people were alien to the concept of instant mixes and the brand had to launch a complete new range of products, to win over consumers. Sahil Gilani, Director, Sales and Marketing, Gits Food Products tells us how the category has grown since then and how the legacy brand is consistently upping its game, to stay relevant.

- Samarpita Banerjee

Q] Gits Food is credited with creating the instant mixes category in India. Tell us about the brand’s journey so far.

We started the company in 1963, and were the first company to start the convenience food sector with the launch of instant mixes. We created the category. My grandfather, one of the founding editors of Vyapar, a Gujarati business newspaper, started the company along with his friend because both of them realized their wives used to spend a lot of time in the kitchen instead of being with their families. However, they also wanted to ensure that the products that they come up with are as close to homecooked food, in terms of the quality and ingredients used. That’s how Gits Food came into being. Initially, we started off with soups but it did not work for us. The idea was too new at the time and when we took the product to shopkeepers, they would ask, ‘Is this tomato flavoured soap?’ There’s a long-running joke in the family, that our soups put us in a soup, because nobody could understand our offering. That was when we decided to change our strategy and started to focus on Indian food products like gulab jamuns, idli, dosa and khaman dhokla, among other products. Over time, we have worked on building and strengthening our distribution. Until 1015 years ago, we were largely an export-driven company because India was not ready for our offerings. 60% of our revenues would come from exports. However, now 60% of our revenue comes from domestic sales and 40% comes from export.

Q] Why did you refresh your packaging recently, after almost a decade?