Raymond, textile major has decided to enter into the FMCG category with its heritage brand. The mandate to develop the fabric and apparel brand of Raymond into a slew of FMCG products in addition to its existing brands like Park Avenue, Premium, True Tone and Kamasutra is been given to its new President & Group CEO for FMCG, Giriraj Bagri.

Bagri said that the fabric brand of Raymond has a legacy and role to play. They are now trying to do a genetic profile to get the essence of what the brand stands for. They have to see which categories Raymond can get into in the FMCG category as it has two FMCG step-down subsidiaries (JK Helene Curtis and JK Ansell) and together they will be treated as a FMCG group.

He further added that the mandate is to figure out whether the Raymond brand can have a big and large FMCG play and even get inorganic growth to position it as an Indian MNC.

It already has a ready retail network through the Raymond stores apart from 600 distributors reaching out to 2 lakh outlets for its existing FMCG portfolio.

In fact, in categories like deos, Raymond has already made a mark where it is the number two brand with a 12 percent value share and has managed to push HUL’s Axe and ITC’s Engage behind it. Park Avenue made a foray into deos almost 15 years ago and has extended its franchise over the years into several categories.

Park Avenue, along with Kamasutra, is the second largest player in deos in the ₹2,500-crore category. The entire Park Avenue franchise contributes 60 percent of the ₹800-crore consumer spends on their FMCG portfolio, he added.

But now sharper segmentation will be required in the FMCG portfolio once the Raymond brand enters the category. Having several FMCG brands is not an issue but finding a different target audience and segment is what they have to look at with Raymond entering the category.

As the textile brand of Raymond makes a foray into the international markets, its FMCG portfolio would also get extended to new markets where it already has subsidiaries.