Hitting a Defensive Note on Consumer Staples

Ken showed Bertie that middle India's income hadn't kept pace with overall growth

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Two of the three venerable consulting companies have offices close to where Bertie works. One of Bertie's batchmates, Ken, has been a lifer at one of the firms, and on the rare occasion that he is at his office, Bertie tries to catch up with him. To be honest, ever since he was asked to calculate the number of ping pong balls that can be fitted into a Boeing 737 in a consulting interview, Bertie is not a fan of Ken's tribe. Bertie had laughed at the question, thinking it was a joke, but sensing that he was the only one laughing, he had then undertaken multiple geometry operations in his head to arrive at the answer. The number that he had come up with, Bertie was told, was more than the global production of ping pong balls over the last decade. The interview had ended swiftly thereafter.

But Ken was different. Despite two decades of PowerPoint, he did not speak in jargon. In fact, his Hindi is like Rohit Sharma's, and though he will never admit it, so is Bertie's. Over cups of masala chai in Ken's plush office, Bertie started, "Tere staples ki to vaat lag gayi hai." Ken specialized in advising consumer staples companies, and Bertie's opening salvo was a comment on their recent weak growth numbers. The rest of the conversation has been translated into English for the ease of readers. To provoke his friend, Bertie said that staples are now well-penetrated in India, and so growth will always remain pedestrian. He advised his friend to switch to hot sectors like renewables and biotech.