`Signs Point to More Olive Oil in India - Olive Oil Times
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Signs Point to More Olive Oil in India

By Vikas Vij
Jul. 30, 2012 12:42 UTC
Summary Summary

The Indian food and bev­er­age mar­ket is shift­ing towards pre­mium qual­ity prod­ucts like olive oil as con­sumer pref­er­ences change, with the pre­mium seg­ment now occu­py­ing over 10 per­cent of the total mar­ket. Factors such as a younger, health-con­scious pop­u­la­tion, increased aware­ness through media chan­nels, and a grow­ing num­ber of afflu­ent fam­i­lies are dri­ving up the demand for pre­mium F&B prod­ucts like olive oil in India.

The Indian food and bev­er­age mar­ket is wit­ness­ing a strate­gic shift from tra­di­tional, low cost prod­ucts to pre­mium qual­ity upgrades as con­sumer tastes change across food seg­ments. Some exam­ples of the upgrade include a move away from car­bon­ated soft drinks to fruit juices, from poly­pack milk to tetra­pak milk, and from palm oil and refined veg­etable oils to heart-healthy olive oil.

The pre­mium food and bev­er­age seg­ment in India now occu­pies more than 10 per­cent of the total mar­ket. While in the past, pre­mium seg­ment branded F&B prod­ucts sold only in niche mar­kets in India, they are now increas­ingly accept­able to the bur­geon­ing pop­u­la­tion of more than a half bil­lion mid­dle income con­sumers. The key dri­vers in the F&B busi­ness; aware­ness, accept­abil­ity, avail­abil­ity and afford­abil­ity, are rapidly push­ing up the demand for pre­mium prod­ucts includ­ing olive oil.

Indian cities are increas­ingly dom­i­nated by a younger and more health-con­scious pop­u­la­tion, a grow­ing num­ber of edu­cated and work­ing women, and nuclear fam­i­lies with fewer chil­dren — all tar­get cus­tomers for pre­mium prod­ucts such as olive oil in India.

Proliferation of Indian media chan­nels and their grow­ing focus on health-ori­ented and supe­rior qual­ity F&B prod­ucts has also con­tributed to this ongo­ing evo­lu­tion as an increased aware­ness about health and well­ness is dri­ving up the con­sump­tion in pre­mium foods like olive oil. The fact that olive oil is a widely accepted prod­uct in the West is another dri­ver of its demand in India.

Recent stud­ies indi­cated that over the next four years, India will have 5.3 mil­lion fam­i­lies with an aver­age income equal to or higher than the aver­age American fam­ily. The con­sump­tion pat­terns of this rel­a­tively afflu­ent Indian pop­u­la­tion for healthy foods such as olive oil will resem­ble those in the United States. In gross con­sump­tion terms, this seg­ment of the mar­ket is going to con­sti­tute 16 per­cent of the total mar­ket over the next four years.


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