CATEGORY WATCH 2010
Noodles, Macaroni, Vermicelli (Up 19 Per Cent)
The market for this category has shown strong YoY (year on year) growth for many years now. This year is no exception.
Naresh Gupta, national planning director, Cheil Worldwide opines, "The category that should get the trophy for growth is noodles. In a single year, it has got redefined. From being a one-player-dominated category, it is now the most keenly contested one. HUL, GSK, ITC, Nestle and a host of regional players big and small (Ching's Secret, Future Bazaar, More Retail and Reliance Retail) are all fighting for this category."
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Richa Arora, founder and chief strategy officer, Five by Six Consulting, believes that thanks to Maggi noodles, this category has come to occupy a very special space in the Great Indian Snacking Story. She says, "With penetration levels of nearly 50 per cent in SEC A and 30 per cent in SEC B, it wouldn't be an exaggeration to say that for some consumer segments noodles and macaroni have become a kind of a 'staple snack' as opposed to a 'variety snack'. What drives the growth of this category is its uniqueness in satisfying a consumer need for a filling, convenient snack which is hot and homemade. There is no other equivalent branded snack of a similar nature."
Adds Narayan Devanathan of Euro RSCG, "I believe that a bunch of continuing cultural truths - life continuing to be fast-paced, families continuing to be starved for time, more working women balancing work and home (ergo men still not cooking more at home), increasing proportions of bachelor and bachelorette pads - have contributed to the mushrooming growth of these products." More brands have entered the market as a natural consequence. Where there used to be one Maggi, there are now Foodles, Knorr noodle soup bowls and so on. Where there was one Bambino and Savorit vermicelli, there are multiple options in not just vermicelli but a whole lot of other pasta variants, including instant macaroni products.
Gupta also feels that with more players coming in and distribution becoming mass, the category can grow manifold. He also points out that, currently, South India hasn't been explored fully in this category. If companies like GSK and Indo Nissin Foods can make an impact, the south could give this category a new growth impetus.
CATEGORY WATCH 2010
Ready To Cook Mixes (Down 12 Per Cent)
Despite being flooded with players like Gits, Shan Mixes, Aashirwad from ITC, Ashoka Cooking Mixes, MTR Express Gravies and Saras, the ready to cook (RTC) market plunged in 2010.
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Devanathan of Euro RSCG offers an explanation. He says, "The world knows best how to oscillate between two extremes. When it comes to food, we either know fast food or slow food. 'Medium food', it appears, is not a very appealing concept."
He explains that is because people are always hassled and hurried from minute to minute, they don't bother about things like cooking. "We just eat stuff that's already prepared by someone else - at home or at a restaurant, or a thela or dhaba. Or, we want to vehemently protest this hurried life and completely turn the clock back, and say: "Let me prepare a meal from scratch and enjoy the journey as well as the destination." Hence the no-no to the ready-to-cook concept."
While Devanathan attributes the decline in the RTC category to human behaviour, Arora of Five By Six Consulting feels that it is because the taste factor does not come up to the mark. She says, "When it comes to preparations like daal-subzi, the consumer benchmarks it to the familiar homemade taste. That is not so in the case of snacking where the objective is diametrically opposite - experimenting with unfamiliar tastes. RTC mixes in this area (gravies and cooking mixes) do not deliver on the taste aspect sufficiently."
She adds that the RTC category will continue to remain in the realm of an emergency-urgency use product for a very small segment of Indian consumers.
