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Business News/ Companies / News/  We want to grow faster than India is growing: Feike Sijbesma
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We want to grow faster than India is growing: Feike Sijbesma

The Vitamin maker Royal DSM chairman on the nutraceutical market in India, harnessing tech for growth and why India has lagged in terms of tackling malnutrition

Vitamin maker Royal DSM chairman Feike Sijbesma wants the €8 billion Dutch multinational to expand in India at a faster clip than the country’s growth rate. Photo: Ramesh Pathania/MintPremium
Vitamin maker Royal DSM chairman Feike Sijbesma wants the €8 billion Dutch multinational to expand in India at a faster clip than the country’s growth rate. Photo: Ramesh Pathania/Mint

New Delhi: Almost 25 years ago, Feike Sijbesma, chairman and chief executive officer of the world’s largest vitamin maker Royal DSM NV, predicted that the Indian economy would grow faster than China. That prediction took a while to come true. Now, Sijbesma wants the €8 billion Dutch multinational to expand in India at a faster clip than the country’s growth rate. Edited excerpts from an interview:

What brings you to India?

I keep visiting India to see how we’re progressing here. I’m also a member of the board of Unilever globally and we have a board meeting this week in Mumbai. DSM also has a global shared services centre in Hyderabad and I plan to visit there as well. So multiple reasons to visit.

You have been in India for over 20 years now. Are you happy with where DSM has reached in these years?

I think we have been around for about 25 years now. Well, 25 years ago I guessed that India would develop faster than China. I reported that to my board as well... I think India’s growing really fast at this moment and if you look to DSM, India’s potential is in the midst of DSM capabilities—new energies, malnutrition—these things.

Are you changing your strategy or rejigging it because opportunities in India would be different now from so many years ago?

What I would like to do, and I was discussing it this morning, is to see what the possibilities are. The government under Mr (Narendra) Modi, I believe, really wants to tackle malnutrition and we being the biggest (entity) in nutrition in the world, can contribute a lot to that. India needs to import energy now but developing solar power will make India less dependent on imports, so DSM can also contribute there. Third, the government’s “Make in India" initiative can put India on the manufacturing map and it also provides opportunities to DSM.

Do you think there’s any particular reason India has lagged in terms of tackling malnutrition or being self-sufficient in energy?

The reason why I was so upbeat about India 25 years ago was the academia—with many Nobel Prize winners—and technology. I still think India is very good when it comes to technology, the entrepreneurial space and communication. In my opinion, India has been lacking infrastructure and investments in infrastructure. The grid electricity is still not stable, roads, harbours, airports are developing now. Infrastructure projects are also hampered by the democratic process, and while we have to remember that democracy is a strong plus, one of the challenges is to push infrastructure in the country.

What are your targets for growth in terms of numbers?

Well we have a quarter of a billion euro sales overall. India is growing at 7% a year and we want to grow faster than India is growing, so pick any percentage—7% or 10%. I don’t want to grow slower than India’s rate and more importantly in the areas we want to focus on— malnutrition, sustainable energy—those are the important growth areas.

How exactly do you plan to harness technology to fulfil your growth plans?

Indian people need to aspire for healthy products. Do they not? Maybe not because they are unaware. Many malnourished people do not know they are malnourished because they get enough carbohydrates, so they don’t feel hungry. Hidden hunger means less brain development, less immunity against infectious diseases. The first thing is to make them aware.

The second thing is to develop new ways of making affordable, nutritious food. In Rwanda, we are exploring how to do this locally and I would like to do it in India as well. The third thing is to make it accessible through local distribution networks, so for that we need infrastructure and collaborations. So aspirational, affordable and available are three things, and we are also looking to partner with the government to make it happen. Also, it’s good for business.

The nutraceutical market in India is fragmented and the growth potential restricted to certain segments only. How do you plan on disrupting the market?

In India you need to work state by state, which also fits with PM Modi’s policy of giving more power and responsibilities to the states. The country’s too complicated and too big to have every project running out of Delhi, so the state initiatives are very important, which also makes it more complicated. We have the technology, we have the products, the price we can set. What are we missing? We need to be able to collaborate with people who can convey to the local people through television and media, we need to collaborate with companies. The other type of collaboration is that we need the distribution network, to bring the products closer to the people.

The nutrition market has also seen a lot of disruption in recent years—Soylent in the US for example—which is trying to change traditional food. Do you also have something planned along these lines?

Yea yea, we are, we are also building more pre-mix facilities in India, which we had also done in Africa. Maybe you don’t get all the necessary ingredients but the rest you can import and mix with the staple food items sourced locally in the country.

You also have a research and technology centre based out of India. What’s the brief given to people working out of there?

We have our basic nutrition centres across the world—in Basel, in Netherlands—at a few other places. What we have learnt is that we need to do some research locally to tune in to the local habits. People in China eat rice and less of bread, so if you end up enriching the bread then nobody’s going to eat it. So we look at local eating habits and find our solutions by linking it to local tastes, flavours and staple foods.

I will give you an example. Due to the war zone, a part in the Middle East was locked for food and a lot of children became stunted. We came with specific biscuits, cookies developed in Europe. Although it was very healthy and contained all the micronutrients, the kids didn’t like the cookies because they found the taste strange, so they did not trust it. They thought it was wrong food! (laughs) We explained and explained and explained but they said, “I don’t trust it" , so we said, “but you are malnourished, c’mon". It just did not work. So we went to an Egyptian candy bar manufacturer and asked them to make date bars.

Without any explanation, people ate it! They simply knew what dates are and that they’re healthy, so they had it. We learnt our lesson also from there.

You are personally involved with a lot of global programmes related to food, nutrition. Is that something that is a passion with you at a personal level?

See I don’t believe in CSR (corporate social responsibility)—so it should not be that this is the company and this is us doing CSR. Therefore the things we do well, I want to connect those to our competencies. The company has two major businesses—nutrition and in materials for new energy. Two topics that I am globally involved in are malnutrition and climate change. So I want to involve the company in both aspects and make it our core competencies. We need to address climate change for flooding and other things, but also for food protection.

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Published: 01 Oct 2016, 12:51 AM IST
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