Freedom rules sunflower oil market with 20 per cent share

Hyderabad: Hyderabad-headquartered Gemini Edibles and Fats India’s (GEF) flagship brand ‘Freedom’ commands an over 20 per cent market share in the branded sunflower oil segment across the country. The company, which imports about four lakh tonne sunflower oil and is the largest importer, clocked revenues of more than Rs 10,480 crore, with 55 per cent […]

Hyderabad: Hyderabad-headquartered Gemini Edibles and Fats India’s (GEF) flagship brand ‘Freedom’ commands an over 20 per cent market share in the branded sunflower oil segment across the country.

The company, which imports about four lakh tonne sunflower oil and is the largest importer, clocked revenues of more than Rs 10,480 crore, with 55 per cent of it coming from branded sales, in 2021-22. The turnover during the previous year was Rs 7,765 crore.

Freedom Refined Sunflower Oil, launched in April 2010 in Andhra Pradesh and Odisha, ranks No. 1 in market share in the sunflower oil category in India (source: Nielsen MAT March 2022). The company reached this position by focusing on select markets — Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Odisha and Karnataka — and a few smaller markets. It has now drawn up plans to have its presence in the northern and eastern States too.

The company also imports 2.83 lakh tonne palm oil. Freedom has rice bran oil, mustard and groundnut oil. “Branded sunflower oil was available only in a few markets. Also, they do not have the right distribution network. There was no branded sunflower oil in undivided Andhra Pradesh when we started,” said P Chandrashekhara Reddy, senior vice president, Freedom Healthy Cooking Oils.

It now has three port-based plants, two in Kakinada and one at Krishnapatnam. “We focused on creating manufacturing infrastructure. When we started, there was no port-based facility for sunflower oil as sunflower was grown locally. Slowly, sunflower imports began. This is where we saw an opportunity,” he said.

“We started with an everyday capacity of 150-250 tonnes, which has increased to 1,700. We have a combined capacity of 2,615 tonne per day. This was possible due to thinking scale and long term when finalising the land,” Reddy said.

Next came the brand. “We wanted a name that means something to customers and is easy to remember. It took close to three months for us to freeze on ‘Freedom’. We can say our efforts have paid off. Of course, there are some copycats which the company has been resisting through legal channels, wherever needed. If there are copycats, it means the brand is doing good,” he said.

It also wanted a new design. “Every brand then had a horizontal name. We launched a diagonal name. After us, all designs went diagonal. We roped in adman AG Krishnamurthy, the founder of Mudra Communications, as the brand consultant. He worked with us for six years. Getting him to work for us was not easy. He visited our plant and verified our credentials in the market before accepting to work with us. Credit goes to him for giving a good foundation to the brand,” Reddy added.

GEF had a low attrition compared to the market and this ensured easy transfer of ideas from the leadership. “When we started, we were 200 people. We are now more than 800 people. Our head office is in Hyderabad. We have a job-work unit, depots and branches here. The three port-based units have seen mega investments,” he said. It integrated a bottling unit in the backend.