Packets Of Growth

The Indian packaged food market is expected to be worth $270 billion by 2027, driven by often contradictory trends in different parts of the country.

- Ajita Shashidhar

SITLADEVI LIVES IN the crafts village of Nirona, on the way to the Rann of Kutch in Gujarat. She makes a living serving home-cooked local cuisine to tourists. Her bajre na rotla loaded with ghee, gond ka halwa and baingan ka bharta are a hit. As you get into a conversation about where she gets her bajra atta or ghee, she surprises by saying she mostly uses packaged atta from the neighbourhood kirana store. “The packaged atta is clean and convenient. I only go to a chakki to get wheat for halwa as I am used to a particular consistency,” she says. Her kitchen also has a bagful of 5 Britannia cakes for her child’s birthday. Earlier, she used to make halwa but says, “Aaj kal bacchon ko yeh hi pasand hai,” she says.

Is small-town India, where 60 per cent of India lives, embracing packaged food due to reduced prices post GST, a single tax system that has enabled manufacturers to distribute in far-flung areas?

One sees similar trends in the quaint town of Ramanagara, off the Bengaluru-Mysore highway, where the local provision store has a string of 10 Milky Mist ghee sachets. Owner R. Shyam says these sell well as they save people the hassle of making ghee at home. “People are becoming quality conscious. They want their food to be clean and fresh and pesticide-free,” says Arvind Mediratta, MD, Metro Cash & Carry. Metro, apart from selling products of food companies, has been actively pushing its own brand, Fine Life, to retailers. Mediratta says having own branded play is important for maintaining standards.

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