The Biscuit Maker From Kolkata That Took On the Giants: The Story of Anmol Industries

Every packet of biscuits on a small-town shop shelf begins as someone's bet. For Anmol Industries, that someone was Baijnath Choudhary.

According to the company's own account, Choudhary came from humble beginnings and placed great emphasis on philanthropy. The company traces its origin to 1994, and its first manufacturing facility is in Dankuni, West Bengal. Today it describes itself as a Kolkata-based maker of biscuits, cookies and cakes.

A note on dates: the company says it was founded in 1994, while one analysis of its corporate filings says the current entity was set up on 19 November 2009 under another name, Bansal Biscuit Pvt Ltd, renamed Anmol Industries on 23 May 2016 and made a public company on 30 March 2017. These accounts don't match, and I couldn't reconcile them, so I'm presenting both rather than choosing one.

Growing Beyond the First Factory

Anmol did not stay a single-plant business. As of March 2026, the company reported seven manufacturing facilities across Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, West Bengal and Odisha, with installed capacity of 360,965 tonnes a year for biscuits and cookies and 16,372 tonnes a year for cakes.

Its own site says it makes 61 biscuit types across sweet, savoury, creamy and wafer categories, plus 21 flavours tailored to consumers in the three continents it exports to. It employs more than 4,000 people and reports annual turnover of more than ₹1,000 crore. These are self-reported figures.

On distribution, the company says its products reach nearly 18 lakh outlets in India. It describes itself as the fourth-largest cookie manufacturer in India by its own account, and adds that it won recognition as a leading FMCG company from the organisation Making of Developed India. It also switched its production process from furnace oil to LPG, which it says lowers greenhouse gas emissions.

The First Attempt at the Stock Market

The company's public-market story has two chapters. In June 2018, Anmol filed draft papers with SEBI, and in September 2018 it received regulatory approval for an offering worth ₹750 crore, with the promoters selling most of the shares. Its financials in the draft papers showed income of ₹1,240 crore and a net profit of ₹72 crore for FY2016-17. At that time, the Baijnath Choudhary & Family Trust held an 82.75 percent stake.

The 2018 offering did not go ahead in the sources I could find.

The Second Attempt

On 26 September 2026, according to a PTI report, Anmol filed a draft red herring prospectus with SEBI for an IPO of up to ₹1,800 crore. It is entirely an offer for sale by the Baijnath Choudhary & Family Trust, so the company would issue no fresh shares and receive no proceeds. The report describes it as a return to the IPO market after the 2018 attempt.

The draft has a few details worth knowing. The "family-pack offering" contributed 23.85 percent of revenue from product sales in fiscal 2026, or ₹485.5 crore. One independent analysis, whose figures I could not check against the filing, says that Bihar alone provides about 30 percent of revenue, that eastern India together makes up about two-thirds, and that six brands account for about 67 percent of sales. That analysis also lists risks such as raw-material cost swings and changes in company secretary. As the IPO is still at the draft stage, its outcome is not yet known.

What Anmol Industries Teaches Us

In India's biscuit market, the household names get the attention. Anmol's story is about a different path: a regional manufacturer that grew through factories, reach and range rather than a famous advertisement, and that is now preparing to ask the public markets for a place beside the larger players.

Whether the IPO happens is a story still to be written. What is already on the record is the scale of a business that started with one founder and one factory in West Bengal.