In his tenth year in India, processed foods firm Dr Oetker’s German managing director Oliver Mirza says convenience, experimenting and better pricing is fuelling growth, as the company gears to get itself ‘future ready’. Globally, Dr Oetker’s food division is now a Rs 23,000-crore business, with over 30% turnover being contributed from home market Germany, and the remaining 69% coming from other markets. Africa, Asia and Australia are the firm’s fastest growing regions, Mirza said, adding that India topped that order last year. Excerpts from an interview:Consumer preferences are changing rapidly for all categories including spreads, sauces, mayonnaise, peanut butter, desserts and mixes. We have been pushing our products through advertising, distribution, pricing. We are in about 50,000 stores and one-third of those are in modern trade. We’ve been able to grow the mayonnaise category and bring in new consumers, as a result of which we’ve grown over 100% last year. Mayo has increased from 6 million consumers to 12 million. While ketchup is currently the largest selling condiment in the country with over Rs 1,225 crore in sales, mayonnaise is a Rs 200-crore category. We expect mayonnaise to equal the size of ketchup by 2022 because of its versatility. We are the drivers in peanut butter. Muesli is on the horizon now. We are also discussing the potential of frozen pizza here with retailers.We haven’t changed any prices. While tax slabs have increased for peanut butter, we have held on to existing prices. We will cover the margin loss on expectations of a bumper crop. The consumer is used to a certain price and we don’t want to change that. We do everyday low prices. As for our trade channels, they are fully GST compliant now.Last year, India hit the No 1 spot in terms of growth. We did the highest percentage growth organically. In absolute numbers, we closed the year with Rs 165 crore, with the retail business growing 44%. Our objective is to be a Rs 1,000-crore company by 2020. While we are always open to acquisitions, we are not pursuing anything actively now. There’s nothing really available.Over the last one-two years, restaurants have been a bit flat and that does impact us. But we have managed to maintain existing businesses and add new accounts. On the other side, we see good pick-up in the retail business. We see people making burgers and sandwiches at home. We see the shift - rather than ordering, some people are making these at home. That is helping us.We are in over 320 cities and plan to go to 500 cities over two years. A lot of these are in smaller towns. We see stronger growth coming from small packs - we have broken the price barrier - Rs 35 for 100 gm pack. What drives growth in smaller cities is the drive for experimenting, which kicks in. What is driving growth in the metro cities is more the convenience factor.