The coronavirus outbreak in the country has created a challenging business environment for most fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) companies.

Ditto with country's leading consumer goods maker, Hindustan Unilever (HUL), which saw a challenging business environment with lower GDP growth and slowdown in consumption for 2019-20.

For the full year 2019-20, HUL reported a domestic consumer growth of 2 percent with underlying volume growth of 2 percent owing to disruptions in supply chain arising from COVID-19 in March 2020. As a result of this and cautious consumer sentiment, the FMCG market saw diverse trends playing out.

This slowing demand environment resulted in lower demand for categories that the FMCG company operates in. While food and refreshments saw profitable growth, performance in the beauty and personal care division was impacted.

"Interestingly, HUL's on-shelf availability was at an all-time high with the Customer Case Fill on Time (CCFOT) at over 95 percent. We have improved our on-shelf quality by 30 percent over the previous year," said Sanjiv Mehta,

chairman and managing director, HUL in the company's latest annual report.

HUL also saw strong growth in its ecommerce channel.

During the year, HUL completed the integration of the GlaxoSmithKline Consumer Healthcare business with itself. "The merger presents us with an

opportunity to combine our respective strengths and strengthen our position in foods, nutrition and refreshments," Mehta said.

With most companies beginning to run tight ships and saving cash, HUL's cost

saving programmes delivered it a welcome 7 percent gross savings of turnover last year.

First Published:Jun 5, 2020 8:51 PM IST