The per capita myopia

With the world turning flatter every day, clear distinction among product categories are fading. Usages and user interfaces are constantly getting redefined, re-aligned and re-discovered. The rapid bundling of services on various mobile telephony platforms – voice, chat, mail, music, media, internet, banking & finance, – today’s phone is a do-all-in-one gadget, an epitome of convergence. Which category then one would slot today’s i-phone in?

Many reports state that in many categories our per capita consumption levels are lower than developed countries leaving huge headroom for brands in various categories to grow given India’s route to market development. Many answers lie in the way we define the category itself.

The US per caps of CSD (carbonated soft drinks) are around 200 litres versus India’s four to five. Category development in the US had a century head start. Category developed in different eras as choices available coupled with purchasing power remain non comparable. World over now a uniform demand surge (as well category development by brands) of natural juices, flavoured water & health drinks is being witnessed, with India being no exception.

For the home grown consumer, the choice to quench thirst is today a mix of cutting edge, new world, modern, classical, traditional etc. With big companies also launching nimbu paani with low per caps of CSDs , will we be ever looking at a per capita CSD consumption comparable to countries who developed those numbers in different eras ? The matrices will have to change and accommodate a heterogeneous mix of bottled, un-bottled and glass-ed beverages.

The share of palate and plate of an average Indian is now crowded with regional cuisines too, apart from the hereditary foods. Why, only last one week I had an Appam at a Marwari home, a dosa at a Gujarati home & a paratha at a Maharashtrian home. We Indians are experimenting, as much with a pizza or a burger as with tonnes of other Indian communities’ foods.

While lot of occidental foods have started encroaching the thali, where pan Indian dishes are already jostling for space, so has Indian cuisine been accepted with open arms across the world – chicken tikka masala & butter chicken are almost national dishes in England! Within India itself , there is so much more to discover in the regional cuisines as we get more mobile. No doubt categories will grow, but the lens with which we view the category itself needs to be revisited.

Let’s look at our basic foods like Poha & Rava which are consumed from ages before corn flakes arrived. Commodities which undergo a manufacturing process, these are consumed as a breakfast item. But whenever breakfast cereal consumption data is being compiled, these traditional breakfast cereals are generally overlooked. Is not it time we give these cereals their due?

Is there a per capita data on the Indian sweets or mithai ever drawn up? But there are references of how poor our appetite for chocolates is – around 54 gms per capita per annum compared to a humongous 11 kg of Germany, Belgium and UK. So, a case for Indian sweet tooth can be made more sweet.

But what about several tonnes of mithai that are churned out daily by scores of halwais across the country, will that vanish ? Our per caps of sugar ( plus gur & khandsari) is 28 kg per annum which is much more than the per caps of the world average.

The local entrepreneur halwai’s have quickly innovated & blurred the category lines by launching chocolate barfi long back, should they be falling under chocolate or Indian sweets as a category. Similarly, chocolates are now being marketed as an option to bite on before starting anything new – a very traditional Indian ritual. How about now chocolate companies innovating & launching a barfi chocolate this diwali, blurring category lines further ....Kuch meetha ho jaye? (The author is Head - Private Brands Business at the Future Group)