Steering Chandrababu Naidu’s legacy: Nara Brahmani’s bold push to reshape Heritage Foods

In June 2024, as the results of the Andhra Pradesh assembly elections favouring the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) came out, Heritage Foods stocks saw a rally in the markets. Founded by TDP chief and Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu in the early 90s, his wife, Nara Bhuvaneswari, is the Vice Chairperson and Managing Director of the company, while his daughter-in-law, Nara Brahmani, is the Executive Director and the second-generation woman leader shaping the strategy.

An electrical engineer with a Stanford MBA, she joined the family business in 2011, right after coming back from the US. Brahmani has also dabbled in the venture capital space. Over the past three years, the company has been focusing on increasing its higher-margin business of value-added products such as curd, cheese, milk-based drinks, sweets, and others. Heritage Foods' standalone reported product mix has been showing a larger share in the revenues. In FY23, the share of value-added products and ice creams was about 29%, which at the end of H1 FY25 was up to 34%. In a conversation with Fortune India, she said the company was on the right path to take this number to 40%. “Historically, value-added dairy products have grown faster than milk by itself in terms of sales,” she said, adding that having a consumer-focused R&D team helps the management in making the right decisions on shaping the products, innovation, and growth.

With the company’s involvement right from the procurement stage, Brahmani says that quality and freshness are given the highest priority. The company procures milk across nine states from nearly three lakh farmers, who are mostly women. The milk procurement and processing are completely in-house, given the short shelf life of products. “The go-to-market strategy is to procure and process milk as close as possible to our markets. So, the quality and freshness of the product in the market are not compromised. Our curd, for instance, from the time of milk procurement to the time it is in the market, probably only takes about 24 to 36 hours for the whole process to happen,” she says. The company has 18 state-of-the-art milk processing facilities with a total processing capacity of 2.78 million litres per day (MLPD) and 199 chilling units with 2.40 MLPD milk chilling capacity.

The company also plans to expand its ice cream production capacity. “Currently, we have about a 25,000-litre-per-day ice cream plant based in Hyderabad, and we are now seeing incredible growth. Given the brand equity in the market, we are investing about ₹230 crores in a fully automated brand-new ice cream plant,” Brahmani said. The plant, which is likely to be commissioned later this year, is targeting production for the summer of 2026.

While Heritage has had its presence in all the major South Indian markets, in the past three to four years, it has expanded to Maharashtra and to the eastern region, majorly in Kolkata, Bihar, and Jharkhand. With the opportunity to upsell even within the existing market, Brahmani said, “The Delhi/NCR market was very important for us because of our focus on value-added dairy products. And for a lot of these exotic products to be sold, more than 50% of that market is between the two cities or two states of Maharashtra and Delhi.” In the Kolkata market, the current focus is on selling long shelf-life products.

E-commerce and quick commerce channels have also been a part of its active market expansion strategy, with sales growth outpacing traditional ones in metros as well as non-metros. “This channel is growing really fast in terms of numbers. Modern trade, plus e-commerce, will be a double-digit contribution towards our sales,” she added.

At the company, Brahmani says corporate governance and diversity are significant, with three women directors on the board and an independent chairperson. “Transparency and fairness towards the farmer are something that really drives each one of us at the highest level. I think we're here for a purpose, not just for business. And that keeps us going, and the opportunity to have an impact on women at a large scale.”