Tata intends to combine food and beverage businesses

India’s Tata Group is reportedly considering a proposal to combine its food and beverage businesses into one single entity.

Bloomberg reported, citing people familiar with the matter, that the Mumbai-based company is intending to separate its salt and lentils units from Tata Chemicals and integrate them with Tata Global Beverages.

Tata Global Beverages is a leading branded seller of tea products for the global market.

It sells tea under brands such as Tata Tea and Tetley, bottled water under Himalayan and coffee under Eight O’Clock.

There is also scope for Tata Coffee to be merged with the beverages firm as part of the new proposal.

The new proposal is noted to be part of Tata Sons chairman Natarajan Chandrasekaran’s business strategy to combine related businesses under a single unit, which is intended to streamline operations and improve overall efficiency.

The group currently has 100 operating companies.

Tata announced its intention to create a single entity named Tata Aerospace & Defence by combining all related businesses.

As an alternative solution, the company is also said to have been assessing the option of consolidating the businesses under Tata Chemicals.

The company is one of the world’s leading producers of soda ash.

The conglomerate is still exploring options and a final decision is yet to be made regarding the units that will be merged.

A special task force has created in support of the initiative, which made presentations to the board of the group’s holding company Tata Sons Ltd.

Furthermore, the combined firm will explore the possibility of establishing an integrated dairy business, either via selected acquisitions or developing it from scratch.