During the month of fasting leading to Ramzan Id, the usually busy Mumbai streets such as Mohammed Ali Road get even busier. A host of food stalls selling everything from mouth-watering biryani to delicious malpuas serve hordes of customers. The rush of customers includes not only the Muslim devout breaking their fast but also food lovers from outside the faith.

However, when the Mumbai-headquartered packaged foods major, Gits Food Products analysed sales trends of previous years, there was a surprise package. While most food conversations centre around malpua, firni, kebabs and baida roti, among others, Gits noticed a spike in sales for its instant dahi wada mix.

“After fasting, these consumers probably wanted a food that could cool the system,” says Sahil Gilani, director, marketing and sales, Gits. This year, the company is actively promoting the category during Ramzan, giving price-offs on the instant-mix packs besides setting up pop-up kitchens that encourage sampling in areas with a large population of Muslims.

Where Gits is actively promoting its existing range of products, including China grass halwa (another cooling product), firni, gulab jamun and two types of kheer , there are others who are launching a new set of products only for this season.

Ready-to-drink brand Paper Boat is one among them. The brand has launched limited edition packs of Serbet-e-Khaas and Rose Tamarind across Mumbai, Delhi, Bengaluru, Chennai, Hyderabad, and Pune. The products will be only sold during the fasting period. Another food company, Desai Brothers, which is behind the brand Mother’s Recipe, has introduced an array of ready-to-cook mixes, from Butter Chicken and Chicken Moghalai to Mutton Curry and Instant Seviya Kheer .

Sure, food plays a big role in the month leading to Ramzan and players are in a hurry to capitalise on any opportunity to increase sales. But according to consulting organisations such as Ogilvy Noor that study the behaviour of Muslim consumers, there is a new set of Muslim consumers emerging across the globe.

Enter the Muslim Futurist According to a study by Ogilvy Noor, ‘Muslim Futurists’ make up 42 per cent of the Muslim population. And they command a disproportionate influence in the community, shaping the culture of the world’s 1.8 billion Muslims and, as a result, global consumer trends. Over 90 per cent of Muslims researched said that their faith influenced their consumption.

The worst part is that nearly 60 per cent of Muslim respondents across Velocity 12 markets, of which the Noor study was a part (see below), indicated that international brands generally don’t (or only a little) understand or cater to their needs.

This view was largely consistent across the biggest V12 markets — Indonesia, Egypt, Bangladesh, and Pakistan. The comforting fact was that the remaining Muslims across the V12 say that international brands understand their needs very well. “Overall this represents an ongoing, unmet need affecting a large group of consumers,” the report says.

These “movers and shakers”, as the agency calls them, tend to be under 30 years of age. They are increasingly educated, entrepreneurial, and keen to live in the modern world, while also upholding Islamic principles.

“As Muslim women are staying in school longer, delaying marriage and having babies later, they are transforming social and familial gender dynamics,” says the study.

The consultancy says that brands targeting this consumer group must work hard to meet Muslim needs, particularly requirements for halal — or permitted foods and actions — and tayyab , wholesomeness or purity. Concepts such as ummah (a supra-national community with a common history) are present across both minority and majority Muslim countries, although they may be presented in slightly different ways.

In countries where Muslims are in the minority, for example, products and brands might use the language of “universal values” rather than strict Islamic terminology, says the study. Indian brands are certainly taking that advice seriously. “Our products are community-neutral,” says Rajan Mathews, vice president – marketing & sales, Desai Brothers. He says that when the company launched its Malabar Chicken range in the southern States, the product found favour with non-Muslims and even non-Malayalis. The Ogilvy Noor study says that while targeting the Muslim Futurists, the specific brand message will be determined by the social context, the overarching one will combine faith and modernity.

Neeraj Kakkar, co-founder and CEO, Hector Beverages, which makes the Paper Boat brand, says the introductions are a part of a larger game plan. Since the beginning of this year, the company has been introducing limited edition beverages around various festivals, like a Thandai beverage during Holi and a Panakam drink to celebrate Ram Navami. He adds that the Ramzan introduction is only a continuation of that exercise.

Fast food At the end of a day of fasting, Muslim families get together for an evening of celebration called Iftar . This is quality time which consumers do not want to spend in the kitchen, rustling up a meal. That’s one reason why instant mixes or ready-to-cook dishes are finding an easy entry point, say marketing experts. The other reason, as Kakkar says, is that many of the younger customers who have migrated to the bigger cities do not know how to recreate the traditional recipes and yearn for a brand that fills that vacuum. That’s true for most religions.

The Ogilvy Noor study says the Futurists have started to apply halal rules to all parts of their activities, creating a Muslim lifestyle.

The desire to imbue every aspect of their lives with Muslim values means that everything for this generation, from clothes to music to travel to food, is an expression of their religious identity. Their choices as consumers demonstrate their values, both their sense of being Muslim and being part of the modern world where consumerism is a key factor in self-definition.

The imperative to live a Muslim lifestyle is unleashing a new creative energy, leading to a whole range of new products and services in four main categories — known as the Four Fs (if not quite literally): food, finance, pharmaceuticals and fun. Clearly, the engagement has just begun.

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