industry

Ready-to-cook food sales rise as India stays at home


BENGALURU: The ready-to-cook foods segment is seeing accelerated growth as the stay-at-home advisory gives people a chance to broaden their culinary engagement and bring home the joy of dining out.

In the three months to end-June, fresh packaged food brand iD Fresh Food has seen paratha sales rise by 60% compared with the previous quarter, while meat products and seafood brand Licious has seen a more than 300% jump in sale of ready-to-eat meat spreads, a two-fold increase sale of ready-to-cook kebabs, marinated meat and seafood.

According to RedSeer Consulting and Research, there has been a 61% rise in consumer spending on home cooking, mostly because the possibilities of dining out dwindled amid the viral pandemic.

In the ready-to-heat segment, sale of idli batter and paneer, too, has registered robust growth — iD Fresh said sale of these items jumped by 20% over the previous quarter.

Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation (GCMMF), which owns the Amul brand, told ET that sales of packaged Indian sweets, like ras-malai, have ticked up too.

Vivek Gupta, cofounder of Licious, said, “Over the last three months, there has been a drastic increase in the number of people cooking and eating at home…consumers are opting for better quality and safer food products…these behavioral shifts are expected to be long term, if not permanent.”

RS Sodi, managing director of GCMMF, said that in view of the shift in consumer preference, the company is setting up a new facility for production of these items, which were until now partly manufactured by third parties. Amul’s launches over the last few months include Haldi Doodh, Panchamrit and adoption of ras-malai and gulab jamun sweets.

“This trend has been catching up in the last 2-3 years, but the speed of consumption has increased during Covid-19,” he said. “Consumers’ first introduction used to be frozen peas. Then came fresh packaged non-veg and potato products. Now Indian dishes like paratha, sweets… everything.”





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