FMCG cos queue up before chemists to ease pain

Companies selling packaged water, juices, oral care products, hand wash, face washes, chocolates and even instant noodles are accelerating supplies and distribution to chemist channels on an immediate basis, since these retailers are allowed to function through the day despite the restrictions in the wake of the new pandemic wave.Several state governments and local administrations have imposed curfews and restrictions on the movement of people and operating timings of shops as part of efforts to curb the rising number of Covid-19 cases. Ecommerce platforms too are facing curbs and delays in delivering orders in heavy caseload Covid markets.“Our plan is to dial up the chemist channel further and disproportionately grow our portfolio in these channels,” said Sunil Kataria, chief executive of Godrej Consumer Products (GCPL) which sells hygiene and household insecticides products, hand wash and surface and skin wipes. 82250593Last year, GCPL appointed 300-plus specialised chemist distributors to service 50,000 chemist retailers, which will be further stepped up now, he added.The maker of Protekt hygiene products and Goodknight insecticide directly covers more than one lakh chemists nationally between its chemist and general trade distributors.FMCG companies said their exposure, which was previously under-leveraged in chemist channels, is being stepped up to mitigate the impact of the curbs on the operating hours of grocery stores. This, despite the chemist channels charging about 5-8% higher margins.“We are also providing our non-nutrition portfolio of products in chemist channels now,” said a spokesperson for Nestle, the country’s biggest packaged foods maker. These include KitKat chocolates and Maggi instant noodles.So far, the only Nestle brands predominantly available at pharmacies were infant cereal Cerelac and health drink Milo.“Given the timing restrictions imposed by some local governments on operating retail outlets, we are engaging more with chemist outlets,” Dabur executive director, sales, Adarsh Sharma said. “With chemist outlets being allowed to operate for longer hours compared with local kiranas and even modern trade during the second wave of Covid-19, we have recast our focus and increased our engagement with them to ensure uninterrupted supply of our immunity boosters and other key health care products,” Sharma said.In the past year, Dabur expanded its direct chemist coverage to 2.5 lakh outlets, and stepped up both direct coverage in chemist channels and availability of products, including chyawanprash, health juices and even oral care products.Companies are resorting to minimising response time of replenishing stocks at channels including pharmacy to meet demand, which is resulting in incremental week-on-week sales.“We are seeing over 15% increase in sales of FMCG products such as packaged water and hand-wash products across pharmacies and chemist channels over the past one week,” said Prasad Danave, president of pharmacy industry body Retail and Dispensing Chemist Association.Maharashtra has restricted operation timings of grocery shops to four hours from 7 am to 11 am, while Delhi has extended its lockdown for another week.

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