Brands
Adani Wilmar buys Kohinoor brand
Mumbai: Adani Wilmar Ltd announced the acquisition of several brands including Kohinoor brand – domestic (India region) from McCormick Switzerland GMBH for an undisclosed amount. The acquisition will give Adani Wilmar exclusive rights over the brand Kohinoor basmati rice along with ‘ready to cook’ and ‘ready to eat’ curries and meals portfolio under the Kohinoor brand umbrella in India.
“The addition of Kohinoor’s domestic brand portfolio strengthens Adani Wilmar’s leadership position in the food FMCG category by augmenting a strong product basket with premium brands along with potential to scale value added products,” said the statement. “It also leverages the reach of Kohinoor brand to drive synergies for Adani Wilmar across geographies and complements the reach of its flagship brand ‘Fortune’ in the food FMCG domain.”
“The acquisition will fuel the next level of growth to Adani Wilmar and widen the portfolio to cater to premium customer segments across rice and other value-added food businesses,” it added.
The Kohinoor brand portfolio comprises ‘Kohinoor’ for premium Basmati rice, ‘Charminar’ for affordable rice and ‘Trophy’ for HORECA (Hotel/Restaurant/Catering) segment.
“Adani Wilmar is pleased to welcome the Kohinoor brand to the Fortune family,” said Adani Wilmar managing director and chief executive officer Angshu Mallick. “Kohinoor is a trusted brand which represents the authentic flavours of India and is loved by consumers. This acquisition is in sync with our business strategy to expand our portfolio in the higher margin branded staples and food products segment. We believe the packaged food category is under-penetrated with significant headroom for growth. The Kohinoor Brand has a strong brand recall and will help accelerate our leadership position in the Food FMCG category.”
Brands
Practo names Cijo George as vice president of artificial intelligence
New vice president of artificial intelligence to mine healthcare data and sharpen care delivery
BENGALURU: India’s healthtech race just picked up speed. Practo has appointed Cijo George as vice president of artificial intelligence, tasking him with wiring AI deep into the company’s sprawling healthcare platform.
George will steer AI strategy and execution, embedding machine intelligence across care navigation, doctor-facing tools and overall platform intelligence. He will work across product, engineering and clinical teams to rewire how patients search for and access care — and how doctors deliver treatment with greater consistency and precision.
He reports directly to Shashank ND, co-founder and chief executive officer.
Shashank ND said years of building healthcare data across patients, providers and treatment outcomes had laid the foundation for more advanced AI applications. Artificial intelligence, he added, can unlock the value of that data to improve patient outcomes and equip doctors with actionable insights. He described George’s experience in building production-grade AI systems as closely aligned with Practo’s long-term vision.
George brings nearly two decades of experience spanning machine learning, AI platforms and product engineering. Most recently at Observe.AI, he led work on large-scale AI systems deployed by global enterprises. Before that, at Belong.co, he drove platform and AI initiatives focused on search and personalisation in the HR technology space. He also worked with the Advanced Technology Group at NetApp, contributing to machine-learning and data-science projects for distributed systems.
An alumnus of the Indian Institute of Science with a master’s degree in high performance computing, George said the chance to apply AI to directly improve patient experience and clinical delivery drew him to the role. Practo’s scale and its extensive longitudinal healthcare data, he added, offer significant room for innovation.
The move comes as digital health platforms double down on artificial intelligence to boost patient engagement, streamline provider workflows and sharpen decision-making. For Practo, the prescription is clear: turn data into diagnosis, and algorithms into advantage.
