Indian savory snacks market shifts towards branded traditional salty snacks

Just three years ago, the Indian savory snacks market was dominated by western snacks such as potato chips and finger sticks that had nearly two-third of the market controlled primarily by Pepsi Frito Lays and ITC Foods.

This is changing as an increasing number of consumers start to buy branded namkeen instead of loose products from bakeries due to the hygiene factor. In other words, the boom in branded namkeen is driven by consumers upgrading from unbranded segment rather than consumers of western snacks shifting to traditional items.

Branded namkeen such as dal, chivra, bhujia and nuts accounted for 52% of total salty snacks sales of about Rs 9,400 crore in the year ended June with both multinationals and home-grown companies pushing namkeen into hinterland with attractive packaging and pricing, industry officials said, quoting Nielsen data.

Companies say the market potential is huge. "The unorganised market is so huge that it remains undocumented, and even we don't know the size of the total market,"Chittranjan Dar, CEO of ITC Foods, said.