While recent statistics relate consumer spending to poverty status, the country's Rs 15,000-crore biscuits market is throwing light on yet another consumption story. Indians are spending as much on cookies as they are on biscuits that are staple fare, including Glucose, Marie and Milk. Both categories now command 24 per cent each of the consumer spend.

In the last two years, the biscuits segment, ruled by the Glucose biscuit, has been consistently losing market share to its more appealing cousin, the cookie, Ms Anuradha Narasimhan, Category Director, Health and Wellness, Britannia Industries Ltd, told Business Line .

Share dips

She said that the category's share has dipped from one-third of the market it commanded two years back, while the cookies' share has shot up from the 12 per cent it commanded two years back. “We realise that consumers are looking for food for pleasure but are not willing to give up on nutrition,” said Ms Narasimhan.

Thus, to keep consumer interests alive in the declining mass market biscuit segment, Britannia is re-launching its rusks range.

With offerings like new variants, smaller packs priced at Rs 5 and Rs 10, and a new promotion strategy, the company hopes to infuse new life into the category. The company also recently launched Tiger Crunch, a variant of the basic Glucose brand and is eyeing entry into the savouries segment.

Rusk, a twice-baked hard biscuit, is mostly sold through the unorganised segment and is seen as an affordable ‘health product.' The category is valued at about Rs 900 crore and growing at 40 per cent plus, almost double the glucose biscuit market growth rate.

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