Urban habits come to small-town India

The effects of the pandemic are being felt in some unexpected ways across India, as migrant workers returning to their hometowns from major cities during lockdowns brought with them new habits that are sticking.

Big city habits 

• Urban habits around food consumption and personal hygiene have been transplanted to lower-tier towns, the Economic Times reports – and possibly to some rural areas too. 
• E-commerce is now enabling access to those items, from health foods to certain toiletries.
• Consumer packaged goods companies are having to reassess product and channel strategies for this development as well as factoring in inflationary and income pressures. 
• Multinationals have an opportunity to extend distribution of their premium and healthier packaged food product portfolios. 

Key quote

“The penetration of e-commerce beyond the metros found the right consumers who had sampled such products and were now ordering it online. This helped consumers in smaller towns to sustain the habit of consuming functional and healthy foods” – Mayank Kumar, marketing head, Dabur India. 

Sourced from Economic Times [Image: Ratul Ghosh on Unsplash]