What about the inorganic growth opportunity? You have 3400 crores lying on your book. The Bisleri deal is out of the picture at this point of time but have you completely given up your direction to get into the water space? What is the strategy going forward? First I will talk about the inorganic growth ambitions per se. We have always maintained that Tata Consumer will always explore new opportunities both organic and inorganic. Internally, we have built a cereal platform. We built a protein platform. We built a ready to drink platform that is organic. On the organic space as well we continue to be in discussions with multiple parties, looking at options on how to expand our portfolio, expand our total addressable markets and grow very aggressively and become one of the top FMCGs in the country.
On specifically on the beverage space itself, like I said, Nourishco, which is a ready to drink business, is now 600 crores plus. Just to put it in perspective when we bought out Pepsico steak in end of FY20 it was 180 crores. So from 180 we have now reached 600 and we are still not where we should be.
We are still expanding aggressively. Tata copper water is doing very well, Tata Glucoplus doing very well, Himalayan again, 50% plus growth and now it is starting to tick very, very profitably.
So, yes, right now we will focus on expanding our footprint and our innovation in this space. And I would say in the next 3 to 6 months you will see an aggressive set of products coming out in Nourishco, which will play across different consumer segments.Just to quote a very famous line from Indra Nooyi in a couple of years ago and when she was heading Pepsico and she said we know our missing piece was protein and they expanded the entire protein business. Is water that missing link for Tata Consumer because if you would have gone ahead with the Bisleri deal, it could have been a game changer for your distribution business, your product business and the profile of the business, I mean, if Bisleri deal does not go through, does your ambition into moving into water business does that change or you would say, okay, I will give it a skip, I will build on something else?First of all, we aim to be a large food and beverage company. It is not only a ready to drink beverage company so we are looking at expanding organically and inorganically as well across different product segments in food and beverage. That is number one. Number two, I would say it is not only water, it is ready to drink beverages. Like I said, we have got Gluco Plus, we have got Fruiski and I would say watch this space in the next 3 to 6 months, we will be expanding aggressively. Yes, what would have happened with the Bisleri acquisition, it would have given us a jump shift and a very strong third leg in India, tea, salt, and ready to drink beverages but now that is not happening. We are probably three years behind. We have just ramped up our entire investments, both in terms of the footprint and manufacturing expansion as well as the product expansion. So in three years, we will be close to where they were.
I’m a very happy consumer of Tata Consumer products from makhanas to rgai chip biscuits I enjoy it all. They are occupying more and more place at least in our breakfast and on our dining table. But are not you spreading yourself too thin, from dry fruits to makhaha, from salt to pepper from basan to you know lal mirch. Are not you spreading yourself too thin? It might look from the outside. It might look as if you are spreading yourself too thin but we are very, very focused on building very, very specific platforms. So one is the core, second is the pantry platform under Sampann. So all the points that you are mentioning whether it is makhana, spices, pulses, etc, comes under Sampann. So we are focused on building the Sampann brand. Number three, we are focused on building a ready to drink and it operates separately under Nourishco. Number four, we are very, very specific about breakfast cereals, mini meals and snacking, which is under Soulfull and a little bit under Tata Smart Foods, which is now SampannYumside that we’ve launched.
And we have just sort of wetting our feet in the protein space. Protein space, we have got a long way to go. We are still not putting major money there. We are just testing it out. And the way we are structured internally, organizationally, and the way we go to market, I think we are very, very well poised to deliver on each of these pieces.
Sunil D’Souza that takes over Tata Consumer, he fixes a lot of things distribution, cash flow, product profile, introduces soul food and the product range. But he also promised that he will bring Tata Consumer at par with what the industry averages are in terms of return ratios. How soon will you fulfil that other promise?Two things there on that; that still remains a target. We probably missed a beat on that piece. Like I said, this was a eventful year and we did not make progress very much on return on capital employed, for example. And that is precisely because a) in terms of the inflation, which bit us? And number two, the cost items that we had to tackle did not come through. But as long as we continue to deliver strong double digit growth, hold costs very strongly returns will flow to the bottom line.
Just to give you a perspective, some of the targets that we had stated; working capital when we started, we were 59 days right now we are close to 34-35.
Other than headcount costs in the India business, we were about 11, today we are 5.5. So as we build scale and synergies, we are seeing efficiencies come in. It is just that this year was eventful on different line items of the P&L and therefore, the return ratio did not come through, but that does remain a target we need to deliver.