Marico's brands will ride on the brand equity of this well-established brand to increase rural penetration. While Marico is exploring such options, the company has not yet zeroed in on a particular brand which it could possibly acquire.

Marico's strong brands are `Parachute', `Sweekar' and `Saffola'. The other brands, also well established in their respective categoriesare `Revive' and `SIL'. As per the industry data on rural India, there are 6,30,000 villages in India with a population of less than 5,000 people. There are approximately 4,000 towns with a population of over 5,000 people. Further stratification of the data reveals that there are 50,000 towns which include other metros where the population is over 50,000.

The real rural areas, as defined by industry data, comprise the 6,30,000 villages where population is less than 5,000. This area is, however, not well connected and very weak in the basic infrastructure.

According to Marico Industries CEO (sales) Jaswant Nair, the company is not looking at penetrating, through the direct distribution route, to these deeper rural areas (population less than 5,000) considering the inaccessibility factor.

Marico's distribution stockists exists in around 3,000 towns. Around 2,500 towns are reached out to through van operations wherever possible. Van operations were initiated by the company two years back, said Nair.