MegaBrands · Edible oils

Fortune: How the Taste of Ghar Ka Khana Became India’s Benchmark in Edible Oils

Fortune, selected as the Mega Brand for Edible oils by the Business Intelligence Unit of WCRC, began as an edible oils business in 1999, the company says. Today it is present in more than 131 million Indian households, and its brand revenues crossed Rs 30,000 crore in FY2025-26.

By WCRC Leaders Editorial · Published October 2026 · 9 min read

At a glance

Fortune is the flagship brand of AWL Agri Business Ltd, the Ahmedabad-based food company formerly known as Adani Wilmar Ltd. The company says Fortune began as an edible oils business in 1999. Its oils range spans soyabean, mustard, sunflower, rice bran, groundnut and cottonseed, and the brand also covers atta, rice, besan, pulses and sugar. Its owner is led by Managing Director and CEO Shrikant Kanhere, and the company says Fortune reaches about one in three Indian homes. It is the Mega Brand for Edible oils in WCRC MegaBrands.

Fortune has built its name on a simple promise: the food cooked at home is the food that matters most. A line it has returned to in its campaigns, “Ghar ka khana, ghar ka khana hota hai” (home food is home food), turns a cooking medium into a feeling. That idea explains much of what follows: the reach, the trust and the steady widening of a brand that began with a bottle of oil.

The story starts in Gujarat. In January 1999, the Adani Group and Singapore’s Wilmar International formed Adani Wilmar as an equal joint venture, and the company says Fortune began as an edible oils business that same year. Over the next quarter century the brand moved from cooking oils into atta, rice, besan, pulses and sugar. The company listed on India’s stock exchanges in February 2022. In 2025 it took the name AWL Agri Business, and after the Adani Group sold its stake that year, the Wilmar group became the majority shareholder.

According to the company’s FY2025-26 annual report, Fortune’s brand revenues crossed Rs 30,000 crore that year.

WCRC MegaBrands covers 501 categories in India and selects one benchmark brand in each. It looks at brands through five pillars: Brand Positioning & Recall; Consumer Trust & Sentiment; Product, Innovation & Delivery; Sustainability, Governance & ESG; and Digital & Financial Soundness. Fortune has been selected as the Mega Brand for Edible oils by the Business Intelligence Unit of WCRC (World Centre for Research and Consulting). Here is how Fortune’s record lines up with each pillar.

Pillar 1: How Fortune Owns the Home Kitchen

Brand Positioning & Recall · weighted 28% in the MegaBrands framework · How MegaBrands measures this

Fortune has long chosen to talk about the meal rather than the oil. In March 2009, Adani Wilmar repositioned Fortune with new packaging and a campaign built around the joy of eating. Pranav Adani, then managing director of Adani Wilmar, set out the aim at the time: “At AWL, our goal is to help consumers rediscover the happiness of eating a good, home-cooked meal and enjoy their food.”

That thought found its lasting words a few years later. In 2014, a four-minute film created with Ogilvy & Mather told the story of a grandmother who keeps trying to feed her bedridden grandson home-cooked dal despite a nurse’s objections, under the line “Ghar ka khaana, ghar ka khaana hota hai”. In February 2024, Fortune returned to the same idea in a 360-degree campaign, again created by Ogilvy India, in which a dish on a restaurant menu carries a diner back to his mother’s kitchen.

The brand also speaks the language of each region. In October 2025, Fortune premiered “Bhojan Bahini”, a campaign for its mustard and soyabean oils in West Bengal, starring Sourav Ganguly and Abir Chatterjee.

When the brand marked 25 years in November 2025, the company unveiled a new logo that it said reflects the brand’s commitment to home-cooked meals. Managing Director and CEO Shrikant Kanhere said the company’s commitment is “to keep strengthening the idea of ‘Ghar Ka Khana’ for every household in the country.”

Pillar 2: Why India Trusts Fortune

Consumer Trust & Sentiment · weighted 26% in the MegaBrands framework · How MegaBrands measures this

Cooking oil is bought often and used every day, so trust shows up in repeat purchase. By AWL’s count, Fortune is present in more than 131 million Indian households, or about one in three homes across the country. That figure has kept rising: the company cited more than 123 million households in September 2025 and more than 131 million by the end of FY2025-26.

Fortune began with oil, and the brand has since followed shoppers into atta, rice, besan, pulses and sugar.

The company’s standing in the category gives the same signal. AWL Agri Business, whose oils are led by Fortune, held an 18.1% share of India’s branded edible oils market on a moving annual total basis in March 2026, according to Nielsen data cited in its FY2025-26 annual report. In the last quarter of that year, its edible oil volumes grew 17% over the year before.

Shrikant Kanhere has described what the brand values most after 25 years: “What matters most is the relationship we’ve built with our consumers.”

Pillar 3: The Engine Behind Every Fortune Pack

Product, Innovation & Delivery · weighted 20% in the MegaBrands framework · How MegaBrands measures this

Fortune’s range is built for the way India cooks, region by region. Its oils include soyabean, sunflower, rice bran, groundnut and cottonseed, along with kachi ghani mustard oil, which AWL describes as cold-pressed and known for its pungency. The Fortune Xpert line offers oils for specific needs, such as Fortune Xpert Pro Sugar Conscious Oil, and the premium Fortune Premio range added three olive oil variants and a cold-pressed mustard oil in FY2025-26.

New launches keep the mustard range fresh. In August 2026, Fortune introduced Yellow Mustard Oil in a one-litre pack, starting in Delhi NCR and urban Punjab and Haryana. “Yellow Mustard Oil has a strong traditional association, particularly across North India,” said Prashant Pandey, Group Product Manager at AWL Agri Business.

Behind the packs sits an industrial base. AWL runs 24 manufacturing facilities across 11 states, including an integrated plant at Gohana in Haryana.

Reach is the other half of delivery. At the end of FY2025-26, AWL’s products were available in about 26 lakh outlets in total, according to Nielsen data the company cites. Its own direct network covered more than 9.65 lakh outlets, after adding more than one lakh during the year, served by over 10,000 distributors and sub-distributors. Rural coverage now extends to more than 60,000 towns, and the company is rolling out micro-fulfilment centres to serve smaller places faster.

Pillar 4: Fortune, From Farm to Frying Pan

Sustainability, Governance & ESG · weighted 16% in the MegaBrands framework · How MegaBrands measures this

A cooking oil brand depends on oilseed farmers, and Fortune’s owner has begun to invest in them. In September 2025, AWL signed a two-year agreement with the Solvent Extractors’ Association of India and Solidaridad as lead sponsor of the Regenerative Mustard Mission. The programme aims to scale from 1,500 to 3,000 mustard model farms across nine districts in states including Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Haryana, to support 20,000 farmers, and to raise smallholder productivity and income by 30%.

Angshu Mallick, then CEO and Managing Director, linked the work to India’s dependence on imported oil: “mustard presents an immense opportunity to strengthen our self-reliance.”

The company is also cutting its own footprint. Its FY2025-26 annual report says 17 of its owned plants now have solar installations, that it reduced steam, water and power use through process changes, and that it strengthened responsible sourcing and traceability, especially in palm oil procurement.

Governance follows the rules of a listed company. AWL Agri Business has been listed since February 2022, and its board is led by an independent chairman, Dorab E. Mistry. Leadership changed in November 2025: Shrikant Kanhere, who joined as Chief Financial Officer in 2013, became Managing Director and CEO, and Angshu Mallick moved to the role of Executive Deputy Chairman. Shareholders approved the appointments by postal ballot in January 2026.

Pillar 5: Fortune’s Growth With Financial Strength

Digital & Financial Soundness · weighted 10% in the MegaBrands framework · How MegaBrands measures this

The numbers show a brand growing at scale. Fortune’s brand revenues crossed Rs 30,000 crore in FY2025-26, the company says. Its owner, AWL Agri Business, grew consolidated revenue from Rs 51,225 crore in FY2023-24 to Rs 63,672 crore in FY2024-25 and Rs 74,731 crore in FY2025-26, a 17% rise in the latest year. The edible oil segment, led by Fortune, contributed Rs 59,788 crore of that total.

Volumes did the work. In the last quarter of FY2025-26, AWL’s revenue reached Rs 21,465 crore, its highest for any quarter, on 14% volume growth. Reporting those results, Kanhere described the company as “driving consistent, volume-led growth with increasing profitability.”

Digital channels are growing quickly. AWL’s alternate channels, which combine e-commerce, quick commerce and modern trade, earned more than Rs 5,200 crore in FY2025-26, up 47%. The company says its edible oil share in these channels is above 30%. Beyond India, AWL’s branded exports crossed Rs 450 crore in FY2025-26, with products reaching more than 35 countries.

The Fortune Benchmark

Every category has leaders. A MegaBrand is the brand its category is measured against. Fortune holds that place in Indian edible oils because its record is strong on every pillar at once. It owns a clear idea in the home kitchen, sits in about one in three Indian homes by the company’s count, reaches about 26 lakh outlets through its owner’s network, invests in the farmers who grow its oilseeds and keeps growing on a sound financial base.

Above all, it shows that an everyday staple can carry real emotional weight. A bottle of oil is rarely the hero of a meal. Fortune has made it the start of one, and in doing so turned “ghar ka khana” into a brand promise that more than 131 million households now buy into.

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About Fortune

Fortune is the flagship brand of AWL Agri Business Ltd (formerly Adani Wilmar Ltd), a listed food company headquartered in Ahmedabad, Gujarat. The company says the brand began as an edible oils business in 1999. Fortune is present in more than 131 million Indian households and sells edible oils, atta, rice, besan, pulses and sugar. Its brand revenues crossed Rs 30,000 crore in FY2025-26. Fortune has been selected as the Mega Brand for Edible oils by the Business Intelligence Unit of WCRC (World Centre for Research and Consulting).