According to Euromonitor, India’s breakfast cereal market is projected to touch ₹26.1 billion by 2020, from ₹14.4 billion in 2015. Pinakiranjan Mishra, partner and national leader, consumer products and retail at EY India, believes that the breakfast cereals market will grow gradually but it cannot be compared with the success it has attracted in other parts of the world. This is mainly because Indians are accustomed to food items such as idlis, dosas, paranthas and poha among others on their breakfast plate.


“This is why ready-to-cook Indian breakfast like upma or poha is gaining wider acceptance than cereals. It gives consumers varied, healthy options that suit the palate and can be termed traditional,” he says.


Devangshu Dutta, CEO, Third Eyesight, has similar thoughts, “Breakfast cereal has been available even before Kellogg’s stepped into the market, but acceptance previously was very low. Currently, while hot cooked breakfasts still dominate, as Indians have travelled and been exposed to cold cereals, they have become more willing to experiment.”

Mishra, therefore, thinks for brands like Soulfull, the positioning and marketing has to be crafted intelligently since the Indian palate overall is still greatly focused on traditional breakfasts. Parameswaran plans to do something similar. Soulfull’s popularly known for cereals and Ragi Bites (choco fills) which technically compete with Kellogg’s and its ilk. While Parameswaran knows his competition very well, he believes Soulfull is not just a breakfast cereals brand.

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“We don’t intend to replace any food item from our consumer’s diet. We are here to capture micro meal moments. We are in the world where people believe in hav- from ing small and multiple meals ’s in a day. That’s one of the reasons ad why we introduced Desi Muesli (a savoury version),” he explains.


When it comes to marketing Parameswaran is clear about his strategies: below the line (BTL) campaigns will take the largest share of the media plan for at least a couple of years.


“We are competing with brands that have been around for a long time. We are aiming to reach Indian homes in a much shorter horizon. That’s why we will be doubling up BTL. We will evaluate the response, and then plan the next phase,” says Parameswaran.


Currently, Ragi Bites is the first product from the brand’s portfolio making an appearance across all children-focused channels. Parameswaran tells us the product has been making the right impressions and needed that extra push to capture the ‘4’o clock’ meal moment.

Parameswaran hints that what his BTL budget equals what the competition is spending on television in just one quarter. “One must understand that from a cost point of view, BTL may not have big numbers but it is much needed for a brand like ours.” His inspiration to follow this route comes from an American health snack brand, KIND, that has established itself purely around on-ground consumer activities.

Source: brandequity

How do we bring plants like kamranga, ambadi or kachnar in vogue?

Written By

We were visiting the sites in Kamrup district in Assam where the Centre for Microfinance and Livelihoods was implementing a project to enhance tribal livelihoods. We were in the backyard of a Rabha tribal family. Mango, Assam lemon plants and pepper creepers on areca nut trees were being promoted.

In the yard, I spotted a number of yellow-red fruits lying on the ground. When I enquired, they brought a raw, green fruit. It was very tasty, with a mild sweet-and-sour taste. I had never seen it before. Locally called kordir, this fruit is formally known as star fruit, I was told.

My erudite companion Jahar Saha, former director of IIM Ahmedabad, told me that it was known as kamranga in Kolkata and he loved it, but it was not often available. He said he paid Rs 60 a dozen when he got it. And here it was rotting in the mud in the Rabha backyard.

I asked why is it not sold and got the typical answer one hears in Assam and North East – the fruit had a short shelf life and transport was so difficult that traders thought it could not be profitably sold and so there was no market for it.

I remembered my colleague piloting a small project a few years earlier for giving saplings of bahunia plant (also called kachnar) to tribal families in Central India. It seems that this plant grows as a large trees and the tree gets new leaves in summer. Young leaves make an excellent vegetable and one day I suddenly saw the bahunia leaves (known also as kachnar) in the local market in Gumla town in Jharkhand.

Still several years earlier, roaming in tribal farms in the then Bharuch district in Gujarat, I had seen and enquired about bright red leaves of a shrub growing on its own in the cotton or tuwar plots of farmers. Upon enquiry, it turned out to be ambadi (or roselle) and it occurred to me how my mother used to make and we all relished a preparation of ambadi mixed with chickpea dough and garnished with garlic, to be eaten with jowar bhakri.

Lost treasures

All this is strictly in the past tense as the cities I subsequently lived in seldom offered leafy vegetables other than spinach or fenugreek. Thoughts of ambadi had then reminded me of tarota (cassia tora), a prolific shrub that grew in monsoon all round our home in Amravati city in Vidarbha and which was picked by our maid to go cook its leaves as a vegetable.

Thinking on these matters, my mind turned to my interaction in the late nineties with a gentleman from Ahmednagar district in Maharashtra. He came to seek my advice and help on a project about ghyapat (agave). He told me that ghyapat grew in abundance in the arid wastelands in the rain-shadow areas of central Maharashtra.

I did not follow what he meant, so he showed me photographs and I immediately recognised these broad and long leaf shrubs, which form boundaries of farms in many rural areas in central India. He said that traditionally the fibers of the leaves were used for making ropes, which were used by villages in their daily lives. Replaced now by nylon ropes, the market for these had crashed and so had the livelihoods connected with it.

Ghyapat grows wild in the arid and warm desertifying lands in much of Marathwada and adjoining Telangana and Karnataka. He wanted to cultivate it, install shredding machines and make a business out of it. He wanted to access a big grant from a foreign donor.

I later discovered that his balance sheet was small and he did not have registration to get overseas funds so getting that foreign grant was out of the question. Subsequently, the project, topic and the name of the plant dropped from my memory. I learn that sweeteners and even wine can be made from extracts of these leaves, aside from rope, for which the small industry corporation in the then Andhra Pradesh had prepared a project.

Going out of use

If a city-dwelling Anglophone like me can cite five examples of trees and plants that have great uses and applications once but have dropped out of attention, clearly there are many more. When one searches information on them, one sees that many of them, for example bahunia, has high nutrient content or have strong medicinal value. And yet they are going out of usage.

Why are they vanishing from our lives, our tables and our food basket? Can they be revived and brought to their pristine positions? I can only speculate about why such plants and their uses are falling into obscurity.

Populations of some of these plants are becoming rare perhaps because of loss of habitat. Amravati was not a thickly populated brick and mortar jungle when I was a child and there were plenty of open spaces. Things have changed now. The plant tarota has perhaps lost its habitat.

Some plants are still seen but in reduced number due to pressure on common lands from grazing, encroachment and diversification in uses. The population of other plants such as bahunia is perhaps not keeping pace with the massive growth in human population and hence the availability of their produce has declined.

In some cases, such as ambadi and kamranga, no effort has gone in to convert them from naturally occurring plants to cultivated ones. Perhaps efforts to understand their agronomy and make their planting materials available have simply not happened. Plants like agave, which occur in abundance, still have simply not been exploited in a manner that fetches good value to those who would grow or harvest them.

Not in vogue?

Perhaps these plants are becoming victims of commercialisation of certain vegetable produce like cauliflower, cabbage, tomato, capsicum, spinach, etc., considered to be appropriate by the social role models. Therefore, no one takes any interest in what we can claim to be our plants native to this country, and they slowly start going out of use and become scarce.

Is this an inevitable situation or one that needs to be and can be reversed? Aside from treating them as quaint curios and writing occasional pieces about these, what can be done about them?

My friend Late Madhukar Dhas told me once that he had organised a competition in Yeotmal in Maharashtra for uncommon vegetable preparations based on plants that occur naturally but are becoming scarce, and there were 61 distinct entries!

If organisers of events where large gathering of people come show cased and offered dishes from these food ingredients, would it create a demand? If along with Spanish, Irish or Mexican food festivals, if star hotel chains offered festivals of vanishing Indian dishes, would it boost them and lead to their larger scale production and use?

This article first appeared on Village Square.

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Flipkart’s refurbished goods marketplace 2GUD will compete with similar platforms run by Quikr, OLX, GreenDust, Reboot, Togofogo, Overcart, Shopclues and Amazon.

Written By Sulekha Nair

What do most people do when they upgrade their phones or buy a new laptop? They sell the old via platforms for refurbished goods. The most-sold items online in the refurbished category are smartphones, laptops, headphones, watches, small appliances and Kindle e-readers, to name a few.

The refurbished goods market in India will be worth an estimated $20 billion in the next five to six years.

Smartphones, the most popular product in the refurbished category, saw volumes grow by close to 25 percent in 2017. It crossed 12 million units in India, according to Counterpoint research’s report – Technology Market Research.

The global market for refurbished smartphones grew 13 percent year-on-year in 2017, reaching close to 140 million units. By comparison, the global new smartphone market grew a scant three percent last year, thus being outpaced by refurbished ‘second-life’ smartphones, according to the latest data from Counterpoint’s Refurbished Smartphone Tracker.

India’s refurbished goods marketplace houses some established and well-known names like Shopclues, OLX, Quikr, among a host of others. Besides, with social media gaining much currency, several Facebook and WhatsApp groups too act as a channel for those interested in selling or buying refurbished goods. It is in this growing market that Flipkart has rolled out its platform for refurbished goods — 2GUD.

“We will keep evolving and bringing newer formats, categories and features which cater to the needs of our value-conscious middle India,” Flipkart CEO Kalyan Krishnamurthy said, adding that all eBay.in sellers and customers will be migrated to the new platform.

“The new platform has a different value proposition compared to Flipkart, and will cater to a different target audience. We are committed to investing in this independent brand,” he pointed out.

But will Flipkart be able to cash-in on its brand name and succeed?

There are early movers in this space. Think Quikr, OLX, GreenDust, Reboot, Togofogo, Overcart, Shopclues and Amazon.

According to a survey by Quikr, people who prefer pre-owned goods are chasing better pricing, easy availability, doorstep service and a short-term requirement. The majority of people who lean towards this segment are in the 20-29 age group and about 54 percent of those polled said they prefer refurbished goods for better pricing and easy availability of products.

Amazon promises fast shipping

Amazon which rolled out its ‘Amazon Renewed’ programme last year, has found customer demand across categories including smartphones, laptops, headphones, watches, small appliances and Kindle e-readers to name a few.

Vivek Somareddy, Director- Seller Services at Amazon told Firstpost, the refurbished goods category is growing 300 percent y-o-y with over 70 percent of all orders coming from cities like Kanchipuram, Secunderabad and Surat to name a few. This category has become a ‘go to destination’ for Indian customers who aspire to buy high quality aspirational products at more affordable prices, he said.

“Certified refurbished products are worked upon by the original manufacturers or professional refurbishers in adherence to our product quality policy. Customers purchasing products through Amazon Renewed get high quality, like-new products at a competitive price – in fact, they can save up to 50 percent while purchasing a refurbished product vs the purchase of a new product,” Somareddy added.

Amazon, however, has a strict policy. “We have a very strict policy regarding quality and under this program, only selected sellers who maintain a high quality and performance bar are allowed to offer certified refurbished products on Amazon.in.

“The refurbishment process for this category typically includes a full diagnostic test performed through industry standard applications, replacement of any defective or damaged parts, a thorough cleaning and data wiping process, and finally the repackaging in a brand-new box. The products come with a minimum of six months warranty offered by the brand or the seller of the product and are available for free and fast shipping with Amazon’s Fulfilled by Amazon (FBA) shipping service.”

Re-New eyes 16 million customers

ShopClues runs Re-New Gadgets for refurbished goods. Re-New clocked Rs 4.5 crore in sales from refurbished and unboxed electronic devices alone, including laptops, smartphones, and tablets, for the month of July. It is looking to double GMV growth with a 16 million customer target in 2018.

“ShopClues had long identified the massive opportunity around the refurbished category; specially the renewed smartphones segment, which according to industry estimates, is set to grow by over 27 percent in 2019. We have almost doubled our customer base from eight million to 16 million within two years and our success has given us confidence to offer more than 400 stock selling units from different brands in the smartphone category.

“Also, soon ShopClues will be launching a full assortment of laptops and TVs from HP, Dell, Apple, Asus, Lenovo, LG, Sony and Samsung for its customers,” said Radhika Aggarwal, co-founder & Chief Business Officer, ShopClues.com

There is a need for more players in the refurbished goods market in India, as there is a market for used products that can be recycled and upcycled, said Devangshu Dutta, Founder-Chief Executive, Third Eyesight.

When people move cities, countries, there are a number of products that are used for a short time and have not lived their full life-cycle, and refurbished goods players come to their aid. However, he said, it is all about peer-to-peer trust.

“If the platform stands by some kind of a guarantee, it will improve that transaction and increase the number of transactions. Else, it does not matter who is doing it. Just because Flipkart is a known name, it won’t find it easy navigating this space,” Dutta added.

The Flipkart advantage

The post-purchase warranty of three to twelve months for each product would be serviced through an extensive network of service centres across India, said Flipkart’s Krishnamurthy. “Additionally, users will always be assured of convenience in payments and logistics,” he added.

Flipkart’s new move toward refurbished goods is a good experiment on its part, said sector specialists. Indian consumers want to own good products but a large number of them have low purchasing power. Beyond the pre-owned two-wheeler and four-wheeler market, there aren’t many platforms which cater to this need. At best, single brand players remain an exchange platform, they said.

But the challenge for Flipkart is to ensure quality. “Customers want goods to perform and will need after-sales services, as original equipment manufacturers won’t be able to provide warranties with the product out of the warranty period. And with products being refurbished, no manufacturer can provide guarantees. Flipkart has the advantage, with technology and logistics. 2GUD is a good opportunity but execution will be the key [to the platform’s success],” said Arvind K Singhal, CMD, Technopak.

Source: firstpost

Written BySuneera Tandon

Earlier this month, IKEA arrived in India with a 400,000 square feet store, 7,500 products, and big expansion plans.

But it left out one key thing: its iconic print catalogue.

The 300-page catalogue is a shopper’s go-to guide for the entire product range that the world’s largest furniture retailer sells. The 2018 IKEA catalogue has over 200 million printed copies, ranking it alongside the Bible, the Koran, and the Harry Potter series as one of the world’s most-distributed books.

Source: qz