'Continental Biscuits intends to maintain the momentum,' Managing Director Continental Biscuits Limited Pakistan

Rafey Nisar Zuberi is Marketing Director for Continental Biscuits Limited Pakistan, a joint venture company with Kraft Foods.
An IBA Karachi graduate, Rafey started his career in 1997 from British American Tobacco in Trade Marketing and Sales Department. His more than 16 years of career include various notable launches and assignments like Olper's Milk and Oreo. Before joining Continental Biscuits Limited in 2012 he has worked in various senior marketing and business development roles in organisations like Engro Foods, Engro Corporation and General Motors-Saudi Arabia. BR Research recently sat down with Rafey and discussed the biscuits market of Pakistan and its potential: Following is the edited transcript.
BR Research: What are your views about the biscuits market of Pakistan?
Rafey Zuberi: Pakistan's confectionary and biscuits industry has been growing for the past few years. The market is dominated by two leading players, Continental Biscuits Limited and English Biscuits. The biscuits industry in Pakistan is the first level of packaged foods category amongst non-essential food items. Over a period of time, through dynamic innovations and technological breakthroughs, the industry has created a lot of new trends.
For the past few decades, the biscuits market in Pakistan has been dominated by global and local brands. Famous global brands like Prince, Tuc, Tiger and recently Oreo have successfully won a very large popularity in Pakistan along with leading local brands like Sooper, Zeera Plus, Rio and Gala, which cater to the masses in Pakistan.
BRR: What are the prime challenges facing your industry and to what extent are they manageable?
RZ: Some of the prime challenges faced by biscuits industry in Pakistan are the rising costs of commodities like flour, sugar, fats and packaging materials, which are continuously placing pressure on the pricing and profitability of the industry. Biscuits in Pakistan also face a distribution challenge, as it becomes a colossal task to distribute such a fast moving product to hundreds of thousands of outlets across the country.
Another critical challenge for the industry is the lack of level playing field as some smaller and mushroom players successfully manage to avoid taxes, making it difficult for the organized and taxpaying sector to compete fairly in the industry.
BRR: What differentiates Continental Biscuits from your competitors in Pakistan, considering there are a number of big names around?
RZ: Quality, innovation and global competitiveness are the hallmarks of Continental Biscuits Limited (CBL). Our brands are amongst the leaders, locally and globally, as they are manufactured according to the highest quality standards-bringing nutritional goodness of natural produce to our consumers. At all times, CBL ensures selection of finest ingredients and product manufacturing in hygienic conditions. Most of the brands marketed by Continental Biscuits, under French biscuits classic brand LU, are true local and global segment leaders.
Additionally, CBL feels a certain sense of responsibility towards the environment and conducts various Social Welfare/CSR projects.
BRR: Do you plan to expand your product line in near future?
RZ: Currently CBL is one of the fastest growing biscuit companies in Pakistan. Our recently launched product, OREO, has been a huge hit in the market. For this particular brand, we have invested Rs1.1 billion on one of the latest biscuit manufacturing lines in the entire region, with the highest prescribed quality standards of our JV partner Mondelez International (formerly known as Kraft Foods). The product remains untouched with any human interaction from start to finish due to latest and fully automated technology.
We intend to keep the same momentum in the future and are continuously striving to launch new products with highest standards of quality. CBL has been a very successful joint venture with Mondelez; hence, their entire pipeline of products and research and development expertise is available to complement CBL brands in Pakistan such as Tuc, Tiger, Prince, Zeera Plus, Gala and Candi.
BRR: Considering the growing market and improving purchasing power, do you plan any plant expansion in near future?
RZ: Looking at the growing likeness and popularity of some of CBL's key brands, we will have to start preparing for capacity expansion and de-bottlenecking of capacity in the near future. The key challenge is to produce the best quality at efficient prices; so Pakistani consumers only get the very best in every LU brand he/she chooses to buy. If CBL continues to remain successful in winning the consumer's trust, we will have to increase our capacity in near future.
BRR: Pakistan is not a big exporter of biscuits and confectionary? What are the reasons?
RZ: CBL started exports from its business operation in the designated markets of Mauritius and Afghanistan with a very small base. Over the years, the export business has grown significantly and now CBL is one of the biggest exporters of quality biscuits from Pakistan.
There is an increased effort by the company to accelerate the growth momentum in export markets thereby bringing precious foreign exchange to the country.
BRR: How do you find yourself ready to cope with any untoward situation especially in the macroeconomic picture?
RZ: CBL has always shown resilient performance. Economic instability plays an important role on the performance of any company, but, as it is evident from our performance in the past, CBL has always come out stronger and sustained all economic and political disturbances.
We believe that the proud local enterprises like CBL in partnership with global giants like Mondelez are in the best position to bring economic stability, manufacturing and marketing excellence, highest quality standards and finest corporate practices which will be critical to face any economic crisis in Pakistan.