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May 2, 2026
Neethi Lisa Rojan, Mint
2 May 2026, Mumbai
Fast-moving consumer goods makers are leaning on a mix of price increases, smaller pack sizes and tighter cost controls to navigate raw-material volatility triggered by the ongoing US-Iran war, while still reporting robust volume growth for the March quarter. The ongoing war blew up end February this year, disrupting global supply chains.
Executives at top firms said calibrated pricing and ‘shrinkflation’ are helping them protect margins. The trend shows staples demand have held up, but also points to a gradual pass-through of higher commodity and packaging costs to consumers as geopolitical disruptions keep input prices elevated.
At Hindustan Unilever Ltd, the strategy is already in motion. The company has implemented calibrated price hikes and adjusted grammage across products. “We are taking calibrated pricing action in the range of 2-5%,” chief financial officer Niranjan Gupta said in a post-earnings briefing on Thursday. “We use a combination of both the put-down price as well as optimizing the fill levels,” said Gupta. The management also noted that its products in the homecare segment such as soaps (Lux, Pears, Dove, etc.) and detergents (Surf Excel, Rin, etc.) will be the first to be affected by price hikes. Interestingly, this happened at a time when HUL’s volumes grew the fastest in 15 quarters.
Companies have anticipated how consumers will behave.
“In times of inflation, income uncertainty, etc. essentials such as packaged foods, biscuits, and household cleaning products tend to see trade-down behaviour rather than outright disappearance of demand,” said Devangshu Dutta, founder of management consultancy, Third Eyesight. “Consumers tend to shift to smaller pack sizes or private labels, rather than abandoning categories altogether,” he adds.
India’s retail inflation rose from 2.75% in January 2026 to a 10-month high of 3.40% in March, driven largely by food prices.
That balance between pricing and demand is playing out across the sector. Nestle S.A., the parent company of the Indian entity said it saw 3.5% organic sales growth during the quarter, with RIG (real internal growth or volume growth) of 1.2% and pricing of 2.3% in the January-March quarter.
“The conflict in the Middle East will have some impact on commodity and distribution costs, and possibly on consumer behavior. But it’s too early to know the full extent of this,” chief executive officer at Nestlé S.A, Philipp Navratil said in the analyst call after the results. Its India unit, Nestlé India, reported its strongest quarterly growth in nearly a decade, led by double-digit volume expansion.
HUL reported a 21% year-on-year rise in consolidated net profit to ₹2,994 crore, while Nestle India saw net profit up 27% at ₹1,110.9 crore. year-on-year to ₹1,110.9 crore in Q4 FY26. HUL has also retained its medium-term guidance for earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (Ebitda) at 22.5%-23.5%.
The resilience in volumes comes even as input costs surge. Prices of crude oil-linked materials, especially packaging, have risen sharply following disruptions around the Strait of Hormuz chokepoint. High-density polyethylene, widely used in packaging, jumped about 42% in March from the previous month.
Multinationals are already bracing for the fallout. Tide and Gillette maker Procter & Gamble, said in its quarterly earnings call that it could take roughly a $1 billion post-tax hit to its fiscal 2027 profit from surging oil prices. Still, not all inputs are moving in tandem. Prices of staples such as wheat, sugar, tea and coffee have remained relatively stable, offering some cushion. Edible oils, however, remain a concern.
Palm oil, a critical input in many FMCG products, is seeing supply shifts, as producers such as Malaysia and Indonesia divert output toward biodiesel. AWL Agribusiness, which sells Fortune oil, said in the quarterly analyst call that edible oils faced a 10% price surge in March, which has already been passed to consumers. The company expects to pass on the rise in packaging material prices also soon. The company posted a 53% jump in consolidated net profit to ₹292 crore in Q4FY26, from ₹190 crore a year earlier.
Experts expect the trend of margin-saving strategies to continue.
“Depending on the product, category and brand, we will see a mix of price hikes, shrinkflation and rationalization of SKUs (stock keeping units), and also a shift from brand-related to tactical advertising and promotional spends to boost short-term demand,” Dutta said.
Elsewhere, companies are acknowledging broad-based inflation but are continuing to push through growth. Bajaj Consumer Care reported near double-digit volume gains even as managing director Naveen Pandey noted that “nearly 100%” of its cost base is under inflation. The company plans further pricing actions alongside cost optimization. Bajaj Consumer Care’s net profit for the March quarter more than doubled to ₹63.6 crore from a year ago.
Beyond the basics
The ripple effects extend beyond staples. Fashion, lifestyle and grocery retailer Trent Ltd flagged uncertainty around supply chains and inflation, warning of potential implications for near-term demand. “Duration and intensity of disruptions in the Middle East, along with its second order effect on supply chain, commodity prices and inflation in general has potential implications for near-term demand,” the company said in its results presentation.
Meanwhile, consumer appliance maker Havells India has initiated price increases after what chairman Anil Rai Gupta described as an unprecedented escalation in input costs. “I’ve not seen this kind of a price escalation in the recent past in the recent memory,” he said in the post results analyst call.“ Calibrated price actions have been initiated, he said. Havells India reported a strong 40% year-on-year increase in net profit to ₹723 crore in the March quarter.
More clarity may emerge as additional earnings roll in. Companies with higher exposure to West Asia, such as Dabur and Emami, are yet to report results and could face greater consolidated impact due to regional disruptions. “Companies such as Dabur and Emami will be more affected at the consolidated level due to issues in the MENA or Middle East and North Africa Region (6-8% revenue salience),” said analysts at Motilal Oswal Financial Services ahead of the earnings season.
For now, inventory buffers are offering temporary relief. Some companies have built raw-material stockpiles lasting up to six months, helping them absorb immediate shocks. “In our international markets, our effect will be in the raw material, practically zero to a couple of points maybe because we are well-stocked not just for this quarter, but the next quarter also. We normally carry six months inventory in international,” said Raj Pal Gandhi, whole-time director at Varun Beverages, the largest bottler of Pepsico in India, in the quarterly analyst call. This has helped the firm tide over the challenges in plastic shortage faced in March.
However, companies will now have to buy raw materials at higher prices, leaving room open for more price hikes.
(Published in MINT)
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January 15, 2026
Sagar Malviya, ET Bureau
Mumbai, 15 January 2026
It’s mostly a tale of two halves for top western fashion labels in India after the runaway sales and retail expansion in the years soon after the pandemic.
While Marks & Spencer, Benetton, and Adidas are battling waning demand, Uniqlo and Nike are gaining fresh ground, reflecting wider choices and increasingly discerning buyers in one of the world’s fastest-growing consumer economies.
Spanish brand Zara is facing stagnant growth while it tapered off at Apparel Group, which sells Aldo, and Charles & Keith brands in India. Experts termed the divergent sales performance as a potential structural shift instead of demand slowdown in India’s fashion and lifestyle market.
Devangshu Dutta, founder of retail consulting firm Third Eyesight, said consumers have clearly shifted towards function, even as trend-led brands continue to exist though they tend to be comparatively smaller. Some brands are also finding it harder to set or even follow trends the way they once did.
“This is especially true for Gen Z, which stays closely tuned to global trends and acts as the primary driver of fashion adoption,” said Dutta. “While older consumers may have greater spending power in absolute terms, it is younger shoppers who shape trends and influence product sales.”
Growth slowed across most leading retailers and fast-fashion brands in the country in FY24 as high inflation and stagnant incomes crimped discretionary spending.
While the trend remained the same for many even in FY25, select brands staged a strong rebound. For instance, Nike India’s sales rose 14% in FY25, up from a 4% increase in the previous year, while Uniqlo accelerated growth to 45%, from 31% in FY24.
Revival after Festive Season
Even Lifestyle, India’s biggest department store chain, grew 5% last fiscal, rebounding from a 4% decline in FY24.
Uniqlo said it continues to see steady momentum in India, supported by strong customer response, retail expansion, rising brand awareness, and a strong ecommerce uplift. “India is now among Uniqlo’s fastest-growing markets in Asia and plays a meaningful role in the region’s overall business,” Kenji Inoue, chief financial officer and chief operating officer, Uniqlo India told ET. “The country’s young demographic, growing focus on quality, and increasing appreciation for functional everyday clothing have all contributed to this progress.”
According to the Retailers Association of India (RAI), sales growth in organised retail segments such as apparel, footwear, beauty and quick service restaurants (QSR) saw single-digit sales growth last fiscal year but the market has recovered after the festive season with double-digit sales performance.
“Demand has improved, but it isn’t broad-based,” said Kumar Rajagopalan, chief executive at RAI which represents organised retailers. “With more fashion options available, Indian consumers are becoming more selective, and growth is coming to brands that offer a strong value proposition and not the cheapest products, but those where prices are justified by innovation, design and quality.”
In FY25, Apparel Group recorded a 25% sales growth, slowing from a 37% increase a year ago. Inditex Trent, which sells Zara in India, saw flat sales compared with an 8% growth in FY24.
Adidas too saw its revenue growth rate slowing to 5% from 20% in the previous fiscal. Sales of M&S and Benetton fell 12% and 3% each, respectively.
Being the world’s most populous nation, India is an attractive market for apparel brands, especially with youngsters increasingly embracing western-style clothing. However, most international and premium brands have been competing for a relatively narrow slice of the sales pie in large urban centres.
(Published in Economic Times)
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December 1, 2025
Priyamvada C, Mint
1 Dec 2025
A wave of investor capital is flowing into India’s laboratory-grown diamond (LGD) segment, as fastscaling brands tap rising consumer adoption in a market now worth well over $300 million. New-age brands have raised multiple rounds of capital on the back of growing market share and improving margins.
Actor Shilpa Shetty-backed Limelight, which is in talks to raise its second round of capital this year, joins the growing list of other small brands such as Onya, Giva, Jewelbox, Lucira Jewellery and Aukera, among others, who have snagged monies in recent months. Limelight has appointed Ambit Capital to raise about $20 million to fund its expansion plans, two people familiar with the matter said.
Confirming the fundraise, the six year-old company’s co-founder Pooja Madhavan said the funds will be used towards store expansion and brand building as it looks to touch 100 stores over the next year. “We are in final talks with growth PE funds and reputed family offices (for the fundraise),” she told Mint.
Other similar fundraises include Onya’s ₹5.5 crore in a pre-seed round led by Zeropearl VC last week, Aukera’s $15 million raise led by Peak XV Partners and Aditya Birla Ventures-backed Giva raised ₹530 crore in an internal round led by Premji Invest, Epiq Capital and Edelweiss Discovery Fund, as it looks to scale up its lab-grown diamond offerings.
Nine pure-play lab grown diamond startups collectively raised a record $26.4 million in 2025, compared with $4.7 million across eight startups last year, data from market intelligence provider Tracxn showed.
The development comes as India’s lab-grown diamond jewellery market, valued at about $300-350 million in 2024, expects to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 15% over the next decade, as per consultancy firm Redseer’s estimates. As the market evolves, several prominent jewellery brands will gradually pivot from exclusively natural/mined diamonds in favour of lab-grown alternatives, alongside high-end jewellers incorporating the lab-growns into their select collections, which will drive sales volumes and act as an affordable entry point for consumers.
This segment has particularly picked pace in the last five years, with millennials and gen Z leading this shift, driven by better value, trendier designs from new-age brands, and growing comfort with lab-grown diamonds as a certified, high-quality product. This category has also widened beyond occasional fashion to gifting, daily wear and increasingly bridal, reflecting sustained consumer confidence and a willingness to treat them as a mainstream jewellery option, Rohan Agarwal, partner at Redseer told Mint in an emailed statement.
He further added that new-age brands have steadily gained market share in the mid-ticket gifting and daily wear segment with many trying to push into premium ranges. While the competitive landscape is still evolving, incumbents have already started responding by launching LGD lines of their own, although the extent to which they can challenge remains to be seen.
Major Indian brands that are considering a foray into this category include Malabar Gold & Diamonds, Senco Gold, which has launched the subbrand Sennes and Tata’s Trent, which launched its brand Pome in Westside stores.
Devangshu Dutta, founder and chief executive officer at Delhi-based consulting firm Third Eyesight, echoed the sentiment. He explained that new-age lab grown diamond players are forcing traditional jewellers to introduce LGD options or risk losing younger customers. “Not just precious jewellery brands, even those that started as fashion jewellery are expanding their range with LGD designs.”
“Down the road, there is potentially scope for consolidation as investors tend to prefer a handful of scaled platforms with strong brand recall and robust economics. So, as the category matures, there may be strategic acquisitions by large jewellery houses and corporates, as well as mergers among funded startups,” he added.
Those startups that can combine in-house manufacturing, design capabilities and data-driven retail expansion would be at an advantage, Dutta said. “Key future growth areas for LGD startups include omnichannel retail presence within India, with offline stores especially in demand-dense locations such as the metros and Tier 1 cities, export markets both with potential cost advantages and brand expansion, and extending into fashion jewellery, everyday wear, coloured lab grown stones and even luxury collaborations that position lab grown as aspirational rather than merely budget friendly.”
(Published in Mint)
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April 15, 2024
Sagar Malviya, Economic Times
Mumbai, 15 April 2024
Spanish fashion company Inditex said it will launch youth clothing brand Bershka and Zara Home in India this year.
“Bershka will open its first store in Mumbai Palladium, and Zara Home will open in Bangalore,” it said in its latest annual report.
Inditex had launched fast fashion brand Zara in 2010 and premium clothing brand Massimo Dutti eight years ago. Its new offering, Bershka, will pitch it directly against Reliance Retail’s Yousta, which too targets the younger consumer segment.
Being the world’s second most-populous country, India is an attractive market for apparel brands, especially with youngsters increasingly embracing Western-style clothing. Fast fashion brands such as Zara and H&M became runaway successes soon after they entered the country.
Experts said Bershka’s target consumer profile is mostly teens to mid-20s, slightly younger than that of Zara, which is pitched at 20-40-year-old fashion-driven customers.
“The product assortment is different, with a higher share of knits, fewer dresses and more casual overall compared to Zara, keeping in line with the lifestyles of the customer group. So in that sense it wouldn’t cannibalise Zara in any serious way, though some of the younger set among Zara buyers could migrate some of their purchases to Bershka,” said Devangshu Dutta, founder of retail consulting firm Third Eyesight. “The biggest question is, can they hit the price points that young Indian fashion consumers want as with domestic brands such as Zudio, Yousta and others, or will consumers overlook higher prices for the style mix and a European brand pull in significant numbers to make the brand viable.”
According to a recent report by Motilal Oswal, the ₹2.5 lakh crore value fashion segment accounts for 57% of the total apparel market and is one of the largest and fastest-growing segments. A substantial untapped opportunity beyond the metros and tier-1 cities, driven by better demographics, higher incomes and greater customer aspiration, has compelled several big players to enter a market that was previously dominated by regional and local operators.
Since its inception in 2016-17, Zudio has seen considerable expansion and reached nearly 400 standalone stores, outpacing most apparel brands primarily due to its competitively priced products with an average selling price of ₹300. Following the success of Zudio, a unit of the Tata Group’s Trent, the segment has seen the entry of national retailers in the affordable youth clothing segment such as Yousta by Reliance Retail, Style-Up by Aditya Birla Fashion and Retail and Shoppers Stop’s InTune.
(Published in Economic Times)
Devangshu Dutta
September 4, 2010
The last three years have been a roller coaster ride for food & grocery modern retail in India.
Progressive Grocer’s India edition was launched in September 2007, during what was an excellent series of years for the modern retail trade in the country.
It was a year after the launch of Reliance Fresh, and a few months after the acquisition of Trinethra’s chain of 170 stores by the traditionally conservative Aditya Birla Group. Spencer’s announced its plans to raise capital for expansion, while Food Bazaar together with its value-format non-food twin Big Bazaar already accounted for more than half the Future Group’s sales.
Other than the established corporate groups, new entrants such as Wadhawan were also well into growth through mergers and acquisitions, including their purchase of Sangam, Hindustan Unilever’s experiment at retailing directly to consumers, Sabka Bazaar and The Home Store.
The four largest foreign retailers were also making their presence felt through Walmart’s announcement of a joint-venture with Bharti in August, Tesco’s and Carrefour’s intensive investigations of the market and negotiations with potential partners, and Metro’s announcement of its planned growth to 100 outlets.
The modern retail engine seemed to be chugging along strongly. But there were also spots of trouble in paradise.
Protests against the opening of corporate chain stores were seen in a few states. In some cases state administrations even formally stepped in to ask for closure of corporate chains to avoid civic trouble, and it looked as if the lights were going out even before the party had really started!
Along with the battle between modern and traditional, both sides of the debate on foreign direct investment (FDI) into the Indian retail sector were also ramping up their arguments. There was vocal opposition from emerging large Indian retailers, as well as the small traders group, while investors and some of the prominent retailers championed the cause of foreign investment.
In both debates, international examples of the damage wrought by large or foreign retailers to local economies were quoted by those opposed to corporate retailers. And in both, the developmental aspects of modern retail were quoted by proponents of modern retail and FDI.
At Third Eyesight, in early 2007 we had carried out a study (“From Ripples to Waves”) on the increasing impact of modern retail on the supply chain. Amongst the study’s respondents, both retailers and suppliers had favourable things to say about the growth of modern retail and its impact on the supply chains for various products. There was not just talk of efficiency with fewer layers of transactions and lower costs, but also of effectiveness, with suppliers reporting 10-25% higher per square foot sales in modern retail stores as compared to their displays in traditional independent stores.
After years of resisting the impending changes to their ordering and servicing structures, major Indian FMCG and food brands became busy setting up or strengthening teams focussed on the modern trade or ‘organised’ corporate customers.
The market was rich with format experimentation for food and general merchandise retail, typically between 1,000 sq ft and 10,000 sq ft, but also with a gradual growing emphasis on 20,000-80,000 sq ft supermarkets and hypermarkets.
Literally hundreds of food brands from other countries actively sought to tap into the growing Indian market, and modern retailers offered them a familiar environment and a well-managed platform for launch.
At the same time, plenty of respondents also said that they had not made any significant changes to their business. Either inertia or fear of channel conflict was preventing them from pushing ahead with newer business models.
In short, there was no dearth of action and contradiction, no matter where you looked.
However, towards the end of 2007 and beginning of 2008, we had a sense of foreboding. With the rush to expand the store network to get first to some yet-invisible finish line, both property acquisition and human resource costs were driven up by a feeling of a shortage in both. I recall writing a column around that time, urging retailers to look at store productivity as their first priority (See: Priority #1: Store Productivity, Same Store Growth).
By the middle of 2008 the crisis was evident. There was a lot of square footage, much of it in the wrong places. There were issues with the supply chain for managing fresh and perishables, those very products that drive frequent footfall into a food store. More importantly, the global financial storm had started gathering strength, reducing liquidity in the market and making investors and lenders look more closely at existing business models.
The spectacular meltdown of Subhiksha in 2008, and the more gradual but equally deep impact on other businesses was visible. And worrying. Players as disparate as Reliance, with its ambitious plans to grow into a Rs. 300 billion retail juggernaut, and the Shopper’s Stop premium format Hypercity seem to take a break to rethink.
2008 and 2009 were years that I am sure many retailers would like to forget, but they were also very valuable. Some people have compared these years to the churning of the ocean (manthan) by the devas and the asuras in Indian mythology, with the deadly poison halahal coming to the surface before the divine nectar amrit could be reached.
In these two years, we have seen stores closed, formats changed, and organisations made slimmer. Store staff have discovered how to live with small changes like higher ambient air-conditioning temperatures, and are learning the more important science of higher transaction values, even with leaner inventories. Management teams are becoming more accustomed to looking at retail metrics other than only sales growth that could be achieved from new square footage. Vendors are finding newer ways to make their brands more relevant to consumers and to the retailers.
More importantly, these years have also underlined the importance of India as a growth market to non-Indian companies.
2010 so far seems a far happier year. Income and GDP growth figures look much healthier. Real estate inventories in malls that were not released in 2007-2009 are coming on the market, many at terms that are more favourable than earlier. Retailers’ financial results look healthier.
There could always be the temptation to rush headlong into growth again. But I don’t think food retailers or their vendors should drop their guard yet.
The coming months and years need significant sharpening up of customer insight, merchandise and inventory planning capabilities and supply chains. Operational assessments, analytics, organisational capability building, are all tools which will need to be looked at closely.
We are at the cusp of the next growth curve, as the population grows and matures, and the market become more sophisticated.
Though the large-small, local-foreign debate isn’t closed yet, the much-awaited approval from the government to allow foreign investment into multi-brand retail businesses may be around the corner.
Even if FDI doesn’t happen immediately, the majors are already in or preparing to enter and ride the consumption growth that will logically happen. In addition to its support to Bharti’s Easyday chain, Walmart has launched its cash and carry operation, Bestprice. Carrefour reportedly is looking to open its first Indian (wholesale) outlet by November in New Delhi on its own, even as rumours of a partnership with the Future Group fly thick and fast. And Tesco is steadily steaming ahead with the Tata group.
And practically every month we are seeing new products and even new brands being launched by Indian and non-Indian companies.
An old saying goes: the journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.
From the tumultuous events of the last three years, it seems that the Indian food retail sector must have travelled at least a few hundred miles already. In one sense it has. Many of the developments that we’ve seen in three years would have taken at least a couple of decades in the more mature markets.
However, in another sense, the food and grocery modern retail sector in India has only taken the first few steps, with much to be accomplished still. The sector remains fragmented, and wide swathes of the market are yet to be penetrated – not just by modern trade, but even by brands that already supply traditional retail. The blend of players and business models, not to forget the spicy regional mix of different market segments, promises valuable lessons not only for those in India but potentially for other markets in the world.
There are very big questions seeking answers. How to improve agricultural productivity so that food security is ensured. How to save the abundant harvests rather than letting them rot in unprotected storage dumps. How to ensure adequate calories and nutrition get delivered not just to the wealthy and the middle class, but also to the poorest in the country.
On the retail side, the Indian versions of Walmart, Carrefour and Tesco are possibly still in the making, and may yet surprise us with their origins and growth stories. And e-commerce is a work-in-progress that may be the dark horse, or forever the black sheep.
I think the big stories are yet to unfold, and the unfolding will be exciting, whether we are just watching or actively participating in the modernisation of the Indian food retail business.
