Instant Noodles to Chyawanprash – Here’s what Indians have been spending during Lockdown

Corona virus pandemic has completely changed the consumers buying habits. Restaurants are shut and the habit of eating fancy food stays with consumer and craves for more. This situation does favors on packaged food industry.

FMCG companies has seen huge spikes in sales and often got out of stock which helped their competitor to jump in as alternate buy during the lockdown and phases of “Unlock”. Businesses such as Dabur India and The Himalaya Drug Co. are perceiving high demand for immunity boosters like chyawanprash,Honey and Vitamin tablets. On the other hand companies like Nestle,ITC and Patanjali has seen rise in demand of Instant noodles and other packaged foods items.

As per the data reveled by Survey Company Nielsen Holdings Plc. In June Chyawanprash sales across the industry grew by 283 percent and Branded Honey rose 39 percent. Companies like Patanjali Ayurved Ltd has also recorded high net sales between April and June by selling the daily essential items such as tooth paste, Soap bar and hair oils.

Demand for Comfort foods rise steeply since COVID-19 outbreak in March.Consumers have been stocking up packaged food products which last long which includes corn flacks instant noodles, rice flacks and makers of this products have seen strongest growth in sales and net profit.

Nestle India, whose Maggie noodles are popular saw an impressive growth of 10.7 pecent in March quarter. Supported by other products like munch and KitKat where the Maggie is not available rivals like Top ramen,Knorr and patanjali Noodles also got opportunity to sale products.

Parle Agro sees the record high sale of its flagship Parle-G biscuits. All-time favorite biscuits of Indian consumer Parle-G has gained 5 percent market share of highly competitive biscuits segment. Interestingly during the lockdown most of the government agencies and NGOs has distributed Parle-G biscuits to the poor and needy people along with the food relief packages as it considered as a good source of glucose.

On the Digital Front,online learning companies such as Byju's,Unacademy and Toppers.com has also seen rise in the user time spend. In July online learning firm Byju's is valued at US$10.5 billion got almost doubled in just one year. Unacademy has successfully raised funds in lockdown and now valued US$1.2 billion. WhiteHat Jr., an 18-month-old start-up for online coding classes, is being acquired by Byju’s for $300 million. Online education industry has grown by US$6 billion in less than a year.

The E-Commerce Sector has also seen a rapid recovery after the lockdown and sees good growth in sales numbers. Key players like Amazon and Flipkart has seen good spikes in online orders. 50 Plus new smartphone launched online and sold exclusively on these E- Commerce site which helped gain more revenue between May to July.Flipkart india has acquired Walmart india’s business and Walmart has invested major amount in Future group’s retail business. Speedy recovery in online sales boosted in GST revenue to Indian government as well however its 59 less as compare to July last year.