JOIN USPeople snack to uplift mood, says Godrej Tyson Foods CEO Abhay Parnerkar
About 65 per cent Indians, surveyed by a report, confessed to indulging in anytime snacking, while 55 per cent of them admitted binging on frozen foods as a mood uplifter. “The India Snacking Report” launched by Godrej Yummiez unravelled the changing attitudes and perceptions of Indian consumers when it comes to snacks and snacking. On the sidelines of the launch, Godrej Tyson Foods Ltd Chief Executive Officer Abhay Parnerkar spoke to DH’s Lavpreet Kaur about the frozen foods category, their vegetarian ready-to-eat portfolio and expansion plans in the Southern market.
Edited excerpts below:
What’s driving the ready-to-cook frozen foods category?
Frozen snacks category is estimated to be about a Rs 3,500-crore market. It's been growing pretty fast particularly during the pandemic. Another point to reflect on, is the growth of e-commerce, quick commerce to jumpstart (the industry).
During the pandemic, when people did not have options - they couldn't eat out, they were all locked in - this category provided a lot of options and a convenient, hygienic, safe way of snacking within the four walls of home, aided by e-commerce.
How have lifestyle changes impacted people’s preferences in snacking?
Indians like to snack a lot. And it's not only at meal times but in between meals as well.It also came out during the report that one of the drivers of why people love to snack is to lift their mood.
How are you keeping your products relevant in the post-pandemic health conscious era?
The pandemic has made people more conscious about safety, hygiene and trust, from the origin of the food perspective. I see it as more of an opportunity, because our brand goes with the whole trust thing, given the high quality, high standard of manufacturing our products come through. The second part also is in terms of ingredients. A lot of people have this perception that anything that's frozen has to have preservatives in it, and that's how it gets its long life. We do not add preservatives in any of our products. These are some of the reasons that even during the enforced pandemic, there was growth in this category, and more specifically for us as a brand.
How do you use IQF tech to stand out as preservative-free?
IQF is Individual Quick Freezing. What it, in simple terms, does is, rather than doing a sort of blast freezing the products collectively, it freezes each unit of the product in a very short period of time. So, the product after cooking in the oven comes out at 50+ degree centigrade and then it's taken to -35 degrees, in a short span of time of 40 minutes and each product unit is frozen individually. It also does not allow the formation of ice crystals which can otherwise spoil the product experience for a consumer.
We just know the best form of preservation is that once you freeze something and it's put in a frozen part of the refrigerator, it will be preserved until the time when you bring it out. That's how to use this (IQF) technology. Keeping the entire product supply chain at -18 degrees centigrade, we were able to ensure that there is no need to add any preservatives in our product.
Why did you choose to expand your vegetarian ready-to-cook portfolio?
About two-thirds of the industry is vegetarian products and even within those, about two-thirds are potato based products - Indians definitely love potatoes in snacking. Regionally, if I were to say, North and West are more skewed towards vegetarian (products) while in South and East, it is the non-vegetarian products’ category that's been attracting a fair bit of attention.
How are you keeping up with the trend of veganism?
That trend in India is still pretty confined to a very niche society - not even 1 per cent (of the two-thirds vegetarian market). The way we see consumers is as non-vegetarian and vegetarian. Veganism or plant-based meat does not play a very significant role right now.
What is your outlook for the frozen food industry?
I think (with) what happened during the pandemic, and then the post-pandemic, and given the amount of headroom that's available in this category, it will continue to grow at a reasonably rapid clip. Perhaps, within the next few years in the double-digit, high teens kind of growth. It's one of the more underpenetrated categories compared to many other FMCG categories. Some of the barriers which have been holding back the growth, which is in terms of widespread cold chain infrastructure, will grow. A lot of companies, existing players and category leaders like us would continue to do a lot of both expansion and product innovation efforts.
The South region is driving a significant amount of sales and vegetarian products within our portfolio are relatively under-represented. For that reason, I think we would continue to focus our energies there.