For decades, Indian consumers encountered these brands in neighbourhood stores and family kitchens. Many faded, as multinational giants took over, but their names linger in collective memory. Reliance Industries appears to be tapping into this residual equity, recognising that reviving a nostalgic brand is far cheaper than building one from scratch. A bottle of Campa Cola today is more than a beverage—it evokes India’s pre-liberalisation era. In that sense, Reliance’s strategy resembles a form of brand archaeology, rediscovering what already exist in the consumer subconscious.
Building an Indian FMCG Challenger
These acquisitions are being consolidated under Reliance Consumer Products Limited, signalling an ambition to challenge giants like Hindustan Unilever, ITC Limited, Nestlé India and Tata Consumer Products. Reliance is compressing timelines through acquisitions, retail strength and a “house of brands” strategy. The real strategic lever lies in distribution. Reliance already controls India’s largest retail network through Reliance Retail. With thousands of stores across formats, the company has direct access to consumers at an unprecedented scale. The addition of digital commerce through JioMart further expands that reach. This means a revived brand can move from acquisition to nationwide availability faster than traditional competitors. The shelf space is already secured.
Another dimension is in the acquisition of regional food brands. Companies like Udhaiyam known for staples and pulses in Tamil Nadu, and Manna (Southern Health Foods), associated with millet-based health foods, illustrate a second trend. India’s food landscape is extraordinarily fragmented. By aggregating regional brands under one distribution network, Reliance Industries preserves local identity and allows them to scale nationally.
A Fully Integrated Consumer Empire?
Over the past few years, the group has also acquired a range of consumer-facing digital platforms and retail businesses, including Netmeds in online pharmacy, Urban Ladder in furniture, Milkbasket in subscription grocery delivery, Fynd in fashion e-commerce infrastructure and Justdial in local search. Individually, these businesses operate in different segments. Collectively, they form the digital scaffolding of an omnichannel consumer ecosystem. One that connects physical stores, online marketplaces, logistics networks and consumer data.
Reliance Group operates across multiple layers of the consumer economy: energy, telecommunications, digital platforms, retail and now consumer products. Very few companies globally possess such a vertically integrated structure. This raises an intriguing question: Is Reliance building India’s first fully integrated consumer empire? If energy powers the economy and telecom powers connectivity, retail may well power everyday consumption. Reliance now sits at the intersection of all three. And in the emerging architecture of India’s consumer economy, owning all three may prove decisive.
The author is a Brand Strategist and Director at The ICFAI Group.