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Speaker 1: Over the past decade, demand for fast food and snacks

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Speaker 1: like potato chips and chocolate has stalled in North America

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Speaker 1: and much of Europe. Greater awareness of the health benefits

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Speaker 1: of eating better and exercising are part of it, so

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Speaker 1: is the recent surge in appetite suppressing drugs like ozepic

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Speaker 1: that's left makers of fatty, sugary, salty snacks in search

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Speaker 1: of customers in other parts of the globe. One place

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Speaker 1: they've found it is India. Sales of snacks and soft

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Speaker 1: drinks have almost tripled there from a decade ago, topping

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Speaker 1: thirty billion dollars last year. But Bloomberg's Pratique Parigia and

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Speaker 1: Kai Schultz report that the popularity of high calorie, low

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Speaker 1: nutrition food in India has also come with rising rates

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Speaker 1: of obesity and diabetes, which are especially problematic for kids.

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Speaker 1: I'm westc today on the Big Take How India came

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Speaker 1: to crave fast food. Partikin Kai joined me from New

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Speaker 1: Delhi and I asked Partique why snack food makers look

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Speaker 1: to India as one of their next big markets.

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Speaker 2: The food habits right, you know, I'm in Indian slave

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Speaker 2: fried food, burgers and pizzas so Indians are sort of

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Speaker 2: experimenting with other westernized food and then the companies have

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Speaker 2: got it figured out that you know, Indians love it,

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Speaker 2: so that's why they're targeted. And it's also in terms

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Speaker 2: of pricing their competitively priced. There is a price advantage

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Speaker 2: as well, and the companies have got it figured out,

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Speaker 2: so that's why they're targeting, targeting Indians in cities as

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Speaker 2: well as small towns. KAI.

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Speaker 1: What are some of the foods that are being introduced

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Speaker 1: to India that are new that you just didn't see

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Speaker 1: a few years ago.

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Speaker 3: Process food is still a relatively new phenomenon in India

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Speaker 3: and part of the reason that it's quite popular here

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Speaker 3: is because it is a novelty and there isn't as

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Speaker 3: much public health awareness about the potential dangers of consuming

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Speaker 3: copious amounts of it. So in grocery stores today you'll see,

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Speaker 3: in particular, lots of breakfast cereals, lots of different chocolates,

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Speaker 3: lots of confectionery items in general. And these are very

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Speaker 3: popular across demographics in India, not just in the bigger cities,

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Speaker 3: but also now in more rural parts of the country

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Speaker 3: where companies like Coca Cola are experimenting with selling small

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Speaker 3: sized portions of these items, keeping in mind the kind

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Speaker 3: of price sensitivities that are at play in India.

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Speaker 1: As it develops, kind of the story starts with a

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Speaker 1: scene in a classroom in India where a nutritionist is

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Speaker 1: trying to teach kids about healthy food options. She grows

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Speaker 1: kind of frustrated. Can you tell us what happened?

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Speaker 3: So this nutritionist has been doing these seminars with young

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Speaker 3: students outside deli for several years now, and what she's

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Speaker 3: found is that there's a real excitement for junk food

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Speaker 3: within this demographic.

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Speaker 4: Yes, as we look at unhealthy options, I really enjoy

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Speaker 4: maggie and like noodles and ramen. But if you look

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Speaker 4: at healthy snacks at home, I really enjoy Indian snacks

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Speaker 4: like sweete Mattai, et cetera.

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Speaker 3: And so many of her activities are designed to spread

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Speaker 3: public health awareness about the pitfalls of having too much

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Speaker 3: McDonald's or too many potato.

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Speaker 5: Chips, fruit and vegetables or vitamins and minerals very good. So,

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Speaker 5: now when you eat aluka parata, does my fist clothes

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Speaker 5: with the number of food groups coming into that Alu cobs,

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Speaker 5: okay and the fats, so cobs, grains, wheat, flour, potato,

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Speaker 5: everything comes here in this finger, and I've used fat

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Speaker 5: in it. But my finger, Oh god, I can't make

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Speaker 5: a fist. What should have been added? Maybe pulses I

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Speaker 5: could have added, Missirotata.

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Speaker 3: And what she says too, is that there's a sort

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Speaker 3: of status issue at play here for any of these

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Speaker 3: young students. Going to McDonald's for a birthday party is

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Speaker 3: far more exciting than having a home cooked me out

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Speaker 3: at home.

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Speaker 6: I had gone to a birthday party of my friends

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Speaker 6: and over there there were many foreign dishes or the

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Speaker 6: dishes from the West, such as pizza berger pasta, and

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Speaker 6: these tasted way different from the dishes or the Indian

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Speaker 6: culture of food. I told my mother after the birthday

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Speaker 6: party about such dishes and how they were one of

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Speaker 6: my cravings.

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Speaker 3: And so trying to sort of make healthy food attractive

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Speaker 3: for youth is increasingly a challenge in India.

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Speaker 7: For her, these products are designed, and more than designing,

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Speaker 7: I think it's the marketing piece which creates the impact

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Speaker 7: in the head of the user of the consumer. You know,

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Speaker 7: it's a big buy in our groceries every month, beat

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Speaker 7: the cookies, beat the Maggie or even for that matter,

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Speaker 7: the milk powders which are full of sugar. These days,

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Speaker 7: all of that looks so easy and so attractive to

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Speaker 7: consume because of a strong marketing skill that these companies use.

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Speaker 1: While there are nutritionists like the one we just heard

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Speaker 1: who are working to educate kids, it is not easy

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Speaker 1: to combat the massive appeal of snack foods, especially for kids.

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Speaker 1: Critique says, many people in India aren't aware of the

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Speaker 1: health risks of eating too much processed foods.

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Speaker 2: That is, the lack of awareness about these food items

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Speaker 2: like they may cause cardiovascular disease, but then most Indians

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Speaker 2: they don't bother.

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Speaker 3: So beyond the public health awareness piece that Pritique pointed out,

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Speaker 3: many large food conglomerates are increasingly facing strict regulation and

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Speaker 3: many of their core markets, particularly in the West. Because

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Speaker 3: these food items are relatively new in India, they have

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Speaker 3: fewer restrictions when it comes to marketing their products, whether

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Speaker 3: that be on television or social media or in grocery

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Speaker 3: stores with the packaging and so this has really created

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Speaker 3: an attractive environment for them to find a massive new

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Speaker 3: market of people who have perhaps less familiarity with some

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Speaker 3: of the challenges of eating junk food regularly and what

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Speaker 3: those consequences could be over the longer term.

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Speaker 2: The companies are targeting obviously India, the world's most popular

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Speaker 2: stuntry now, as Kay pointed out, they can't increase their

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Speaker 2: selves elsewhere, so they're targeting India.

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Speaker 3: And what we're seeing too, is that many of the

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Speaker 3: restrictions that have been put in place in Western markets

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Speaker 3: where junk food has tradition, we've been quite popular, are

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Speaker 3: working to curb sales, Whereas in India, when you look

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Speaker 3: at the growing market for junk food and the change

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Speaker 3: in retail volume, you see pretty dramatic increases across the

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Speaker 3: board for everything from breakfast cereals to chocolate, to sweets

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Speaker 3: and potato chips. So these regulations that are being put

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Speaker 3: in place in countries like Mexico or Chile, or the

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Speaker 3: United States or parts of Europe have been very effective

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Speaker 3: at sort of changing the tide and public perception of

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Speaker 3: how much junk food is a good idea.

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Speaker 8: Pritique.

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Speaker 1: Also right that you're starting to see these snack foods,

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Speaker 1: various junk foods appearing in Bollywood and in other kind

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Speaker 1: of forms of just popular culture in India.

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Speaker 2: When the show in a movie or in addisement, obviously

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Speaker 2: they show the sales or any food item like burger

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Speaker 2: or any fruit juice, choppiana slice.

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Speaker 8: You are just a piece for free every day. I

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Speaker 8: love Maggie Masala, a be assorted mushroom broccoli, a baby

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Speaker 8: gone for Maggie medal.

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Speaker 2: To make it popular, they give these examples in Bollywood

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Speaker 2: movies or elsewhere.

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Speaker 1: Kai in India. You write that even in metropolitan areas,

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Speaker 1: large supermarkets still aren't very common, and so a lot

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Speaker 1: of these foods are sold in convenience stores. Is this

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Speaker 1: the kind of main competition for just traditional home cook food?

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Speaker 3: So for a lot of India's history, open air vegetable

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Speaker 3: markets have been the norm, right, so you go outside

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Speaker 3: and you source your produce locally. Typically there are very

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Speaker 3: few options for processed foods. In recent years, we've seen

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Speaker 3: more convenience store chains open up in cities like Delhi,

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Speaker 3: and they sell a mix of items, but typically they're

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Speaker 3: stocked with processed food and they tend to do quite well.

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Speaker 3: So while the larger supermarkets still aren't common, it's certainly

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Speaker 3: true today that in the bigger cities, at least these

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Speaker 3: convenience store chains are very much upending what used to

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Speaker 3: be a very kind of traditional way of obtaining food

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Speaker 3: in India, which is to go somewhere outside, to barter

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Speaker 3: for the price of onions or potatoes or fruits, and

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Speaker 3: to do a lot of you're cooking at home with

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Speaker 3: whole ingredients.

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Speaker 1: In partigue, what are some of the big brands that

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Speaker 1: have moved into India and taken up more and more

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Speaker 1: of people's diets.

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Speaker 2: For breakfast, there's a protocoled Maggie right, It's basically noodles,

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Speaker 2: the deep fried refined flower PRDUG. The brand is owned

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Speaker 2: by Nestley, so Maggie's is very common even in small towns.

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Speaker 2: And then Kellogg's, Kellogg's, Cereals, McDonald's obviously for burger, then

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Speaker 2: Pizza Dominoes or Pizza Hut, big butns.

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Speaker 3: All the big brands are now in India, whether that's

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Speaker 3: Pringles made by Kelenova formerly Kellogg's or Cereals made by Nesle.

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Speaker 3: You will find pretty much anything that you would find

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Speaker 3: in many other parts of the world, particularly in the West.

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Speaker 8: In India.

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Speaker 3: Now they may be sold in more specialty shops, but

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Speaker 3: something like a Coca cola bottle is omnipresent and very

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Speaker 3: accessible to most Indians from a price perspective. What we're

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Speaker 3: finding too, is that a cereal box in India may

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Speaker 3: look very different from a cereal box in another part

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Speaker 3: of the world. So in India, for example, you can

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Speaker 3: still use cartoon characters to sell a box of cereal.

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Speaker 1: In parts of.

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Speaker 3: Latin America that's increasingly banned, so you'll no longer be

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Speaker 3: able to find as much messaging that's specifically targeting children.

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Speaker 1: After the break. How this lack of regulation helps pave

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Speaker 1: the way for fast food sale in the world's most

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Speaker 1: populous nation. Earlier this year, India surpassed China to become

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Speaker 1: the world's most populous country with more than one point

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Speaker 1: four billion people. And with so many people in India

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Speaker 1: now eating fast food, I asked KI what food companies

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Speaker 1: had to say about the potential health impacts of their products.

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Speaker 3: TeleNova has cut sugar in its chocolate cereal by a fifth.

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Speaker 3: Nesle notes that it voluntarily includes nutrition information on the

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Speaker 3: front packaging of items sold in India, and Unilever has

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Speaker 3: said that the company is committed to providing products that

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Speaker 3: strike a balance between having enough nutrients but also being

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Speaker 3: palatable for consumers. Many of these food companies will say

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Speaker 3: that they are dressing a need in the Indian market.

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Speaker 3: The history of India is one that has been dotted

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Speaker 3: with famines, with a challenge of under nutrition malnutrition. Now

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Speaker 3: what we're seeing is that the options are plentiful, but

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Speaker 3: diets are increasingly being replaced with ones that involve many

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Speaker 3: empty calories. Many of these food companies will also argue

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Speaker 3: that all of the nutritional information is on the packaging

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Speaker 3: of their items, and the public health activists will come

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Speaker 3: back and say, yes, they're there, but they're buried on

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Speaker 3: the back, They're not featured prominently on the front of

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Speaker 3: the labeling. And in many cases, the front of the

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Speaker 3: labeling will play up perhaps that a product has high

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Speaker 3: vitamin D or that it's high in protein, but will

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Speaker 3: minimize or ignore or under sell that the sugar content

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Speaker 3: is very high, or that a product has many carbohydrates

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Speaker 3: in it. So there are various ways of obscuring that

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Speaker 3: information that public health activists feel is prevalent now in India,

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Speaker 3: and it's ultimately at the expense, they say of consumers.

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Speaker 1: As we've seen.

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Speaker 3: Over the last decade or to the obesity rate in

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Speaker 3: India has surged pretty dramatically, particularly among children, and that's

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Speaker 3: of ever greater concern not just for activists, but also

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Speaker 3: for parents, for schools, for public health officials, and for

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Speaker 3: India more generally, as it attempts to balance its desire

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Speaker 3: for more foreign business with of course, the necessity of

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Speaker 3: protecting public health.

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Speaker 1: This question of labeling is an important thing for a

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Speaker 1: lot of people who are concerned about what people in

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Speaker 1: India are eating. Why is labeling such a big deal?

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Speaker 3: Regulation in general of food items is a very recent

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Speaker 3: conversation in India, So until twenty eleven, there was no

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Speaker 3: real regulatory that looked at food and food safety and

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Speaker 3: how to educate consumers about the choices they're making when

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Speaker 3: they go into the grocery store, and so there's still

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Speaker 3: fairly limited public awareness about the dangers of many of

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Speaker 3: these products. It's also important to note that India only

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Speaker 3: really opened up its economy in the nineties, so until

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Speaker 3: relatively recently, there were a few options available to many

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Speaker 3: people in the country. These are very new entries, and

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Speaker 3: therefore many people don't quite recognize the potential dangers of

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Speaker 3: over consumption. Public health activists are very aware that ultimately

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Speaker 3: the consumer makes the choice about what they want to

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Speaker 3: eat or not eat. I think where some of the

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Speaker 3: tension lies is how these products are marketed to children,

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Speaker 3: where the choice is far murkier, and where you really

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Speaker 3: have to have much more of a support system around

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Speaker 3: you to understand what exactly you're putting into your about you.

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Speaker 8: The labeling is a very stranger.

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Speaker 2: The content is written a very tiny letters, you know,

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Speaker 2: I mean, you don't have the patience, and most of

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Speaker 2: it is in English.

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Speaker 8: A lot of people can't treat English.

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Speaker 2: So if a particular packet has a particular quantity of sugar,

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Speaker 2: people aren't going to notice it because the letters are

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Speaker 2: so tiny.

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Speaker 1: When we come back, what is India's government doing to

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Speaker 1: combat rising obesity rates? Given the health concerns associated with

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Speaker 1: processed foods, especially in kids, I asked Partique what India's

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Speaker 1: government was doing about it.

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Speaker 2: A couple of years ago, there were meetings by the

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Speaker 2: food regulator to talk about labeling and the meeting was

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Speaker 2: attended by the activist company officials and the government officials,

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Speaker 2: officials from the Food DEGLETA and they were trying to

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Speaker 2: have a consensus on how labeling should be done in

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Speaker 2: the food packets. So what we found out was the

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Speaker 2: company officials they were sort of dominating the meeting. So

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Speaker 2: that's why we.

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Speaker 8: Haven't seen no big change in leveling in India.

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Speaker 1: And a note here that India's Health Secretary and Chairperson

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Speaker 1: of the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India did

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Speaker 1: not respond to multiple requests from Bloomberg for comment about

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Speaker 1: this story. Kai, you mentioned that childhood obesity rates in

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Speaker 1: India have risen quite a bit. What are the statistics

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Speaker 1: around obesity rates in general in India?

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Speaker 3: Since India liberalized three decades ago, the adult obesity RAYA

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Speaker 3: has surged. It's more than triple and among children, the

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Speaker 3: rises the steepest in the world, behind Vietnam and Namibia.

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Speaker 1: Kai and Critique report that as late as the nineteen nineties,

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Speaker 1: India's target was to eradicate extreme hunger. The government put

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Speaker 1: the focus on calories, not nutrition. Some global health experts

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Speaker 1: have even said that being overweight was a symbol of

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Speaker 1: luxury among the affluent. I asked Kai.

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Speaker 3: About this, because these new food items processed food items

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Speaker 3: are affordable and no more expensive the more traditional options.

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Speaker 3: What we're seeing is that obesity is no longer a

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Speaker 3: disease of the elite. It's now something that's far more

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Speaker 3: widespread across India, touching many different demographics and income levels.

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Speaker 1: Do you think that the government will begin to step

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Speaker 1: in to try to address some of these concerns about

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Speaker 1: health and nutrition?

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Speaker 2: The comment should do it because all these activities are

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Speaker 2: after them. So yeah, I mean, sooner or later they

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Speaker 2: may do something. I remember, you know, I like a

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Speaker 2: couple of years ago we did a story saying they

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Speaker 2: were doing the opposite. At a press conference, the food

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Speaker 2: secutive once said that, you know, we want to boost

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Speaker 2: consumption of sugar in the country because there is a

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Speaker 2: selfless I hope. I think the sooner or later government

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Speaker 2: will make regulations stronger to sort of reduce or control

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Speaker 2: sale of junk food in India.

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Speaker 3: Last year, the Indian government proposed using health star ratings

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Speaker 3: on the packaging of food, and though that system isn't

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Speaker 3: yet in effect and could still change, and in fact

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Speaker 3: has faced quite a bit of pushback from public health activists,

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Speaker 3: the question is really an open one still about whether

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Speaker 3: that kind of system will have an impact on curbing

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Speaker 3: unhealthy purchases. And I think it's ultimately something that India

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Speaker 3: and it's one point four billion people can no longer

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Speaker 3: turn away from, particularly as OBC rates go up and

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Speaker 3: as the country looks to be a real destination for

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Speaker 3: various businesses.

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Speaker 1: Thanks so much for coming on the show. Thank you,

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Speaker 1: thanks for listening to us here at The Big Take.

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Speaker 1: It's a daily podcast from Bloomberg and iHeartRadio. For more

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Speaker 1: Email us questions or comments to Big Take at Bloomberg

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Speaker 1: dot net. The supervising producer of The Big Take is

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Speaker 1: Vicky Vergolina. Our senior producer is Catherine Fink. This episode

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Speaker 1: was produced by Zeneb Sidiki and Federica Romaniela. Phil de

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Speaker 1: Garcia is our engineer. Our original music was composed by

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Speaker 1: Leo Sidrin. I'm West Kasova. We'll be back tomorrow with

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Speaker 1: another Big Take.