A few months after Zydus Wellness' acquisition of the Kraft Heinz India business, the company is now charting out an integration roadmap. Sources tell CNBC-TV18, that so far the focus of Zydus Wellness has been to grow the acquired business as a standalone entity.

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Zydus Wellness announced the acquisition of the Kraft Heinz India business for about Rs 4,600 crore in October 2018.

To aid integration, Zydus Wellness has set up a core team that will look into this process, said sources. The larger integration plan is likely to be based on three pillars — direct distribution, innovation and brand extension. Zydus Wellness is looking to aggressively increase direct distribution to ensure that a wider range of products reach the market.

The combined entity has 1,800 distributors and 2 million consumer touch points at present. As part of the deal with Kraft Heinz, Zydus Wellness has acquired global rights for Glucon D, Nycil and Sampriti Ghee. It has also got Complan rights for India, Bangladesh and Nepal.

Zydus is also looking at a combination of innovation and brand extensions as part of the company's three pillar integration strategy.

Sources say that the innovation team is experimenting with different formats and stock keeping units or SKUs. The company may explore ready-to-drink tetra packs and smaller SKUs for existing brands, said sources.

Innovations are likely to be rolled out in second leg of business expansion, said sources. However, the detailed business integration roadmap could take 3-4 months to firm up.

Zydus Wellness did not comment on CNBC-TV18 query.

First Published:May 21, 2019 11:39 AM IST