Companies and retailers are reporting higher sales of large packs of biscuits, noodles, rice, edible oils and hygiene products such as handwash and floor cleaners compared to individual or smaller packs, as consumers stock up grocery amidst apprehensions of a lockdown following the Covid-19 outbreak.
This bucks the trend of the past three-four quarters when individual consumption and smaller packs were doing better on account of slowing sales, which had led to consumers buying single unit packs of products.
“We are seeing an over 20% surge in demand for biscuit packs of 1kg, 2 kg, 800 gm, for both entrylevel and indulgence categories,” said Mayank Shah, category head of biscuits and snacks company Parle Products, which makes the brands KrackJack, Monaco and Parle-G.
Companies and retailers said while earlier the bigger packs would be picked up mainly in modern trade, for the past one week, demand for the large bulk packs shot up in general trade too, which constitutes about 90% of all FMCG sales.
Packaged basmati rice producer and exporter Kohinoor Foods’ joint managing director Gurnam Arora said: “We are seeing a rapidly changing buying pattern over the past week. Consumers, who usually bought 1 or 2 kg rice, have switched to 5-kg packs.”
Kohinoor sells and exports basmati rice, spices and ready-to-eat foods under the same brand name and Arora said demand for its basmati rice packs has increased up to four times over the past one month in markets like the US. “While our production lines and systems are in place, we have increased product replenishment cycles in trade channels depending on the demand,” Arora said.
With restaurants shutting down and people cooking and working from home, the demand for large packs of cooking ingredients such as condiments and spices too has shot up.
“Large packs are contributing over-proportionately to the current growth,” said Oliver Mirza, managing director of Dr Oetker, which makes and sells spreads, mayonnaise, peanut butter and dressings. “Against the average monthly unit sales through the entire calendar year of 2019, we see growth of over 20%, especially in large packs such as peanut butter and also vegetarian mayonnaise.” He said the same was the trend since a month.
Marico India managing director Saugata Gupta said consumers are pantry-stocking on sales of bulk packs of edible oils, with households doubling up on product replenishment cycles.
The past one week, consumers have been over overstocking on grocery. The government has announced a shutdown of malls and restaurants across various states in efforts to contain the spread of the deadly Covid-19.
Companies said they have accelerated supply cycles to ensure adequate delivery of stocks to general trade, supermarkets and online retailers. On Thursday, PM Narendra Modi said in an address to the nation that there was no need for panic buying and that grocery stores would remain open.
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