Biscuit major Parle Products has decided to stay away from the health and nutrition segment. It will instead focus on the premium indulgence-oriented biscuit category.
According to Mayank Shah, Group Product Manager, Parle Products, “The health and wellness category has still not evolved and is limited to the metro markets.”
Rather than emulating competitors like Britannia which has steadily been increasing its biscuit franchise on the ‘health and nutrition’ platform, Parle is now planning to introduce more premium brands in indulgence categories like cookies and crème.
“There will be another ‘indulgence’ cookie brand in the next few months as we want to grow our biscuit portfolio at the premium end of the market. A major part of the Rs 13,000 crore biscuit market still comprises ‘indulgence’ oriented brands, and health and wellness biscuit brands are still a small part of the category,” added Praveen Kulkarni, Marketing Manager, Parle Products.
Some of the ‘indulgence’ brands in Parle’s portfolio are Hide & Seek, Happy Happy and 20:20. In the recent past, a new variant under Hide & Seek Fab has been introduced by the company.
“Growing affluence has led to a shift in biscuit preferences among urban consumers, who are moving to premium varieties such as cream-filled sandwich cookies, chocolate chip cookies and the centre fills. While glucose biscuits are still considered the mainstay of the market, many companies increasingly position their cookie brands to challenge confectionery on an indulgence platform,” says Deepa Dsouza, Trend & Innovation Consultant India, Mintel, a global supplier of consumer, product and media research and data.
Parle Biscuits has decided not to extend its ‘health’ oriented brand of Actifit comprising sugar-free and digestive biscuits.
As the biscuits category is moving from mass to premium, Parle has decided to reduce its dependence on its flagship brand of Parle G, and focus more on the more lucrative premium category which gives better margins than the glucose category where it has always been a market leader.
purvitha@thehindu.co.in