From soaps to cornflakes: Did you know Baba Ramdev is an FMCG tycoon?

If you want to learn about Brand success, just take a look at yoga guru Baba Ramdev. He spends nothing on advertising and marketing but has built an FMCG empire in just three years, which is now worth a whopping Rs 2,000 crore, almost half of Harsh Mariwala’s Marico, which is worth about Rs 4,000 crore. From March 2012, when Ramdev announced his entry into the fast moving consumer goods and herbal retail markets with his ‘swadeshi’ line of products, the yoga guru today has emerged as one of India’s more successful brands in the otherwise less penetrated rural markets too as his  150-200 dedicated outlets in 2012 have grown to almost 4,000 now,  prompting Ramdev to sell the FMCG range in the open market too. From toothbrushes to night suits to breakfast cereals, Baba Ramdev has added a spiritual touch in each item up for sale thanks to his massive customer communities, and may just give FMCG firms a a run for their money. A report in Times of India today claims that Patanjali Ayurved, the company that manufactures the products, clocked a turnover of about Rs 1,200 crore in fiscal 2015, up from about Rs 850 crore a year earlier and Rs 450 crore in fiscal 2012. And in the current fiscal, Patanjali is expected to clock a turnover of Rs 2,000 crore, a 67% jump from the previous fiscal. [caption id=“attachment_1498799” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Yoga guru Baba Ramdev.[/caption] Ramdev’s products are 30 percent cheaper compared to products being sold by MNCs like Hindustan Lever and P&G and now even the central government may soon allow thousands of Khadi Bhandar outlets across India to start selling ayurvedic and food products manufactured by his trust. According to reports, the Modi government is considering a proposal made by Ramdev’s company Patanjali Yogpeeth (PY), which made a presentation to Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME) minister Kalraj Mishra in November, where it highlighted KVIC’s failures and offered ways to “plug the gaps” in its functioning by providing research and development support to the Khadi and Village Industries Commission Little wonder that Patanjali’s success is now the talk of boardroom discussion too so much so that not just kiranas but big retailers like Reliance Retail, Big Bazaar, Hyper City and Star Bazaar are also stocking Ramdev’s FMCG products. But the real play is online. While Patanjali’s products are already available  at e-commerce site BigBasket, Ramdev is now aiming for Amazon too,  Aditya Pittie, CEO, Pittie Group, the  Mumbai distributor for Patanjali’s general trade business and a pan-India distributor for its modern trade segment, told Times of India.