Mumbai, July 1 -- In 2003, ITC's then food division chief, Ravi Naware, had set an ambitious revenue target for the company's packaged foods business: Rs.500 crore in four years, along with some profit. ITC has long since blown past that target. While the company does not break out revenues by food alone, its non-cigarette fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) business did sales of nearly Rs.22,000 crore in FY25; in comparison, it did just over Rs.9,000 crore in sales 10 years ago.

In FY15, ITC had three food brands with sales of over Rs.1,000 crore each: atta brand Aashirvaad, biscuits brand Sunfeast and chips brand Bingo. Today, Aashirvaad is worth over Rs.8,000 crore (by consumer spend, which includes total sales and sales channel margins...