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Kellogg India, after having entered the savoury oats category recently, is now eyeing the ethnic breakfast cereal market.Through a study on the nutritional adequacy of breakfast, the cereal company has discovered that while parathas are favoured in the north, idlis and dosas continue to be preferred in the south as the ideal breakfast.
Kellogg’s has tried to crack the ethnic breakfast market in the past, and this time it plans to enter the same with its savoury oats with ethnic flavours. Sangeeta Pendurkar, Managing Director, Kellogg India, said, “We have found that traditional breakfast is preferred by Indian consumers. But traditional breakfast is not adequate and is considered to be skimpy. We will continue to adapt our offerings for the Indian market and offer whatever is relevant.”
Kellogg’s has already tried out India-specific offerings such as mango and banana cornflakes in the past.
Being a late entrant in the savoury oats segment compared to Marico and Pepsi (Quaker oats), it now expects ‘ethnic’ flavours to work better in the Indian market rather than its regular oat bites. However, Kellogg’s has yet to get its distribution in place for the oats category.
New flavours
Harpreet Tibb, Director-Marketing, Kellogg India, said, “Savoury oats will ride the same distribution as cornflakes and we expect to ramp up distribution in this segment in the next one month. We have introduced basic flavours such as pudina which is new in the Indian market along with the evergreen tomato flavour and will be exploring more variants depending on the consumer.”
Kellogg’s has pitted itself against market leader Pepsi’s Quaker Oats at Rs 10 in the savoury oats category, which is a notch lower than Marico’s offering at Rs 15.
Competitors such as Marico are also aggressively building the masala oats franchise. “Today we are already the number two player in oats with a 14 per cent volume share and looking forward to scale up this category,” said Saugata Gupta, CEO, Marico, during a recent analyst meet.
Compared to the Rs 700-crore cornflakes category (where Kellogg’s leads with a 60 per cent share), oats is still small category estimated at Rs 160 crore.
“Growth in cornflakes is still double digits unlike the 5-6 per cent growth in the oats category. The overall breakfast cereal category continues to grow at almost 16 per cent today,” adds Tibb, citing figures from research agency Nielsen. More multinational players such as Nestle and HUL may enter the oats category shortly.
purvita@thehindu.co.in
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