Foods and Inns Ltd Acquires Kusum Spices for Rs 13.99 crore

Foods and Inns Ltd on Wednesday acquired Kusum Spices for Rs13.99 crore. Under this transaction Foods & Inn will enter into partnership with a share of 99.99% with Kusum Spices, a partnership firm which is in the branded spice business under the 47-year old popular household brand ‘Kusum Masala.’

Foods & Inn is a listed company on Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) and is in the business of manufacturing mango and guava Pulp. It has a sales turnover of Rs 340 crore for 31^st March 2019. Out of which exports comprises 65% and 35% in the domestic market. Most of the customers are Fortune 500 companies including Coca Cola Corporation and PepsiCo.  

Kusum Spices produces about 1100 MTs of spices. It has a turnover of Rs17.16 crore for the year ended 31^st March 2019.

Announcing the partnership with Kusum Spice, Bhupendra Dalal, Chairman, Foods and Inns Ltd, said, “As a part of our business strategy inorganic acquisitions are a key components of drivers of our growth. This acquisition will lead our transition from being a purely B2B player to a branded B2C one in the branded spice business. We aim to bring in synergy by expanding on Kusum’s distribution channels and private labelling will bring in growth both in revenues and margins and will create value for all the shareholders.”

The Indian spice market size was around Rs 40,000 crore in 2017. Kusum Spice has presence in domestic and also export market in Gulf and Africa, with an export turnover of approximately 25%, which is around Rs 4.5 crores.

The Kusum Spice Group has been in business of spice for over 47 years. The promoter is Shard Kusumchandra Shah. The factory is presently situated at Kusum House at Goregaon and will soon shift to Nashik.

As on March 31, 2019 frozen foods company, Finns Frozen Pvt Ltd merged with Foods and Inns Ltd, which is situated at Sinnar, near Nashik and is in the space of frozen snacks such as Samosa, Onion Bhajji,  Naans and Vegetables. Finns frozen division of Foods & Inns itself consumes about 100 Mt of Spices. This is likely to increase substantially in the coming year. A majority of their products are exported.

In the year 2018-2019, the company monetized its land in Chembur, Mumbai and received proceeds of Rs 148 crores.  On May 2, 2019, they issued two bonus shares for one share held.