Is snacking in India becoming too expensive?

New Delhi, Aug 16 Snacking is inherent to India's cultural ethos, and whether it becomes too expensive or not it'll always be loved. As a sector, snacking in India has made a 360-degree transformation since the pandemic began. While before this event, India was on a get-healthy trip of low snacking and daily exercise regime, the series of enforced lockdowns drastically affected the population's morale, leading to heightened amount of stress and everyone resorting to their old ways of comfort such as snacking. Snacking grew so majorly that it changed India's eating norms, by 2020 instead of having three meals daily, we had become a multiple snacking cultures. Many studies agreed that the pandemic had led to considerable expansion in the category volumes, and, even after returning to pre-Covid living conditions, a slowdown in snacking was unlikely.

Effects of the pandemic

In fact, the hybrid work model supported the inflated consumption of snacks though certain trends certainly did stand strong. Branded snacks had finally earned the consumers' approval and owned over 65 per cent of the market share of all snacks sold, a huge uptick from the pre-Covid 40 per cent levels. In 2020-21, consumers were looking for quality assurance and thus were willing to pay a premium for branded snacks. Health consciousness too was on the consumers' minds and influenced the choice of snacks bought. So, snacks having high-protein and vitamin-rich qualities were preferred over the rest even at an elevated price range.

Inflation on the rise: Snacking to get dearer

Just as the FMCG and snacks markets were celebrating, inflation struck. The economy has been parked for a while, 13-months to be precise, on the upswing of an inflationary cycle and that has affected the FMCG segment heavily. Retail inflation has ridden to unbelievable highs touching 6.95 per cent in March 2022 and continuing its rally to 7.8 per cent in April 2022. Since the Consumer Food Price Index is strong at 8.4 per cent in April from 7.7 per cent a month earlier, food prices are phenomenal at present and snacks are getting costlier as well.

Steady inflationary pressures mean high pressure on the industry

From March-April 2022, while there have been some price hikes in the snacking industry, downtrading has become the norm with consumers preferring smaller packs instead of their regular ones and cheaper brands too, as is the FMCG industry's current fate. There've been several reasons for the continued inflationary statethe Ukraine war has accelerated pressures on fuel, food

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