Speaker 1: Over the past decade, demand for fast food and snacks
Speaker 1: like potato chips and chocolate has stalled in North America
Speaker 1: and much of Europe. Greater awareness of the health benefits
Speaker 1: of eating better and exercising are part of it, so
Speaker 1: is the recent surge in appetite suppressing drugs like ozepic
Speaker 1: that's left makers of fatty, sugary, salty snacks in search
Speaker 1: of customers in other parts of the globe. One place
Speaker 1: they've found it is India. Sales of snacks and soft
Speaker 1: drinks have almost tripled there from a decade ago, topping
Speaker 1: thirty billion dollars last year. But Bloomberg's Pratique Parigia and
Speaker 1: Kai Schultz report that the popularity of high calorie, low
Speaker 1: nutrition food in India has also come with rising rates
Speaker 1: of obesity and diabetes, which are especially problematic for kids.
Speaker 1: I'm westc today on the Big Take How India came
Speaker 1: to crave fast food. Partikin Kai joined me from New
Speaker 1: Delhi and I asked Partique why snack food makers look
Speaker 1: to India as one of their next big markets.
Speaker 2: The food habits right, you know, I'm in Indian slave
Speaker 2: fried food, burgers and pizzas so Indians are sort of
Speaker 2: experimenting with other westernized food and then the companies have
Speaker 2: got it figured out that you know, Indians love it,
Speaker 2: so that's why they're targeted. And it's also in terms
Speaker 2: of pricing their competitively priced. There is a price advantage
Speaker 2: as well, and the companies have got it figured out,
Speaker 2: so that's why they're targeting, targeting Indians in cities as
Speaker 2: well as small towns. KAI.
Speaker 1: What are some of the foods that are being introduced
Speaker 1: to India that are new that you just didn't see
Speaker 1: a few years ago.
Speaker 3: Process food is still a relatively new phenomenon in India
Speaker 3: and part of the reason that it's quite popular here
Speaker 3: is because it is a novelty and there isn't as
Speaker 3: much public health awareness about the potential dangers of consuming
Speaker 3: copious amounts of it. So in grocery stores today you'll see,
Speaker 3: in particular, lots of breakfast cereals, lots of different chocolates,
Speaker 3: lots of confectionery items in general. And these are very
Speaker 3: popular across demographics in India, not just in the bigger cities,
Speaker 3: but also now in more rural parts of the country
Speaker 3: where companies like Coca Cola are experimenting with selling small
Speaker 3: sized portions of these items, keeping in mind the kind
Speaker 3: of price sensitivities that are at play in India.
Speaker 1: As it develops, kind of the story starts with a
Speaker 1: scene in a classroom in India where a nutritionist is
Speaker 1: trying to teach kids about healthy food options. She grows
Speaker 1: kind of frustrated. Can you tell us what happened?
Speaker 3: So this nutritionist has been doing these seminars with young
Speaker 3: students outside deli for several years now, and what she's
Speaker 3: found is that there's a real excitement for junk food
Speaker 3: within this demographic.
Speaker 4: Yes, as we look at unhealthy options, I really enjoy
Speaker 4: maggie and like noodles and ramen. But if you look
Speaker 4: at healthy snacks at home, I really enjoy Indian snacks
Speaker 4: like sweete Mattai, et cetera.
Speaker 3: And so many of her activities are designed to spread
Speaker 3: public health awareness about the pitfalls of having too much
Speaker 3: McDonald's or too many potato.
Speaker 5: Chips, fruit and vegetables or vitamins and minerals very good. So,
Speaker 5: now when you eat aluka parata, does my fist clothes
Speaker 5: with the number of food groups coming into that Alu cobs,
Speaker 5: okay and the fats, so cobs, grains, wheat, flour, potato,
Speaker 5: everything comes here in this finger, and I've used fat
Speaker 5: in it. But my finger, Oh god, I can't make
Speaker 5: a fist. What should have been added? Maybe pulses I
Speaker 5: could have added, Missirotata.
Speaker 3: And what she says too, is that there's a sort
Speaker 3: of status issue at play here for any of these
Speaker 3: young students. Going to McDonald's for a birthday party is
Speaker 3: far more exciting than having a home cooked me out
Speaker 3: at home.
Speaker 6: I had gone to a birthday party of my friends
Speaker 6: and over there there were many foreign dishes or the
Speaker 6: dishes from the West, such as pizza berger pasta, and
Speaker 6: these tasted way different from the dishes or the Indian
Speaker 6: culture of food. I told my mother after the birthday
Speaker 6: party about such dishes and how they were one of
Speaker 6: my cravings.
Speaker 3: And so trying to sort of make healthy food attractive
Speaker 3: for youth is increasingly a challenge in India.
Speaker 7: For her, these products are designed, and more than designing,
Speaker 7: I think it's the marketing piece which creates the impact
Speaker 7: in the head of the user of the consumer. You know,
Speaker 7: it's a big buy in our groceries every month, beat
Speaker 7: the cookies, beat the Maggie or even for that matter,
Speaker 7: the milk powders which are full of sugar. These days,
Speaker 7: all of that looks so easy and so attractive to
Speaker 7: consume because of a strong marketing skill that these companies use.
Speaker 1: While there are nutritionists like the one we just heard
Speaker 1: who are working to educate kids, it is not easy
Speaker 1: to combat the massive appeal of snack foods, especially for kids.
Speaker 1: Critique says, many people in India aren't aware of the
Speaker 1: health risks of eating too much processed foods.
Speaker 2: That is, the lack of awareness about these food items
Speaker 2: like they may cause cardiovascular disease, but then most Indians
Speaker 2: they don't bother.
Speaker 3: So beyond the public health awareness piece that Pritique pointed out,
Speaker 3: many large food conglomerates are increasingly facing strict regulation and
Speaker 3: many of their core markets, particularly in the West. Because
Speaker 3: these food items are relatively new in India, they have
Speaker 3: fewer restrictions when it comes to marketing their products, whether
Speaker 3: that be on television or social media or in grocery
Speaker 3: stores with the packaging and so this has really created
Speaker 3: an attractive environment for them to find a massive new
Speaker 3: market of people who have perhaps less familiarity with some
Speaker 3: of the challenges of eating junk food regularly and what
Speaker 3: those consequences could be over the longer term.
Speaker 2: The companies are targeting obviously India, the world's most popular
Speaker 2: stuntry now, as Kay pointed out, they can't increase their
Speaker 2: selves elsewhere, so they're targeting India.
Speaker 3: And what we're seeing too, is that many of the
Speaker 3: restrictions that have been put in place in Western markets
Speaker 3: where junk food has tradition, we've been quite popular, are
Speaker 3: working to curb sales, Whereas in India, when you look
Speaker 3: at the growing market for junk food and the change
Speaker 3: in retail volume, you see pretty dramatic increases across the
Speaker 3: board for everything from breakfast cereals to chocolate, to sweets
Speaker 3: and potato chips. So these regulations that are being put
Speaker 3: in place in countries like Mexico or Chile, or the
Speaker 3: United States or parts of Europe have been very effective
Speaker 3: at sort of changing the tide and public perception of
Speaker 3: how much junk food is a good idea.
Speaker 8: Pritique.
Speaker 1: Also right that you're starting to see these snack foods,
Speaker 1: various junk foods appearing in Bollywood and in other kind
Speaker 1: of forms of just popular culture in India.
Speaker 2: When the show in a movie or in addisement, obviously
Speaker 2: they show the sales or any food item like burger
Speaker 2: or any fruit juice, choppiana slice.
Speaker 8: You are just a piece for free every day. I
Speaker 8: love Maggie Masala, a be assorted mushroom broccoli, a baby
Speaker 8: gone for Maggie medal.
Speaker 2: To make it popular, they give these examples in Bollywood
Speaker 2: movies or elsewhere.
Speaker 1: Kai in India. You write that even in metropolitan areas,
Speaker 1: large supermarkets still aren't very common, and so a lot
Speaker 1: of these foods are sold in convenience stores. Is this
Speaker 1: the kind of main competition for just traditional home cook food?
Speaker 3: So for a lot of India's history, open air vegetable
Speaker 3: markets have been the norm, right, so you go outside
Speaker 3: and you source your produce locally. Typically there are very
Speaker 3: few options for processed foods. In recent years, we've seen
Speaker 3: more convenience store chains open up in cities like Delhi,
Speaker 3: and they sell a mix of items, but typically they're
Speaker 3: stocked with processed food and they tend to do quite well.
Speaker 3: So while the larger supermarkets still aren't common, it's certainly
Speaker 3: true today that in the bigger cities, at least these
Speaker 3: convenience store chains are very much upending what used to
Speaker 3: be a very kind of traditional way of obtaining food
Speaker 3: in India, which is to go somewhere outside, to barter
Speaker 3: for the price of onions or potatoes or fruits, and
Speaker 3: to do a lot of you're cooking at home with
Speaker 3: whole ingredients.
Speaker 1: In partigue, what are some of the big brands that
Speaker 1: have moved into India and taken up more and more
Speaker 1: of people's diets.
Speaker 2: For breakfast, there's a protocoled Maggie right, It's basically noodles,
Speaker 2: the deep fried refined flower PRDUG. The brand is owned
Speaker 2: by Nestley, so Maggie's is very common even in small towns.
Speaker 2: And then Kellogg's, Kellogg's, Cereals, McDonald's obviously for burger, then
Speaker 2: Pizza Dominoes or Pizza Hut, big butns.
Speaker 3: All the big brands are now in India, whether that's
Speaker 3: Pringles made by Kelenova formerly Kellogg's or Cereals made by Nesle.
Speaker 3: You will find pretty much anything that you would find
Speaker 3: in many other parts of the world, particularly in the West.
Speaker 8: In India.
Speaker 3: Now they may be sold in more specialty shops, but
Speaker 3: something like a Coca cola bottle is omnipresent and very
Speaker 3: accessible to most Indians from a price perspective. What we're
Speaker 3: finding too, is that a cereal box in India may
Speaker 3: look very different from a cereal box in another part
Speaker 3: of the world. So in India, for example, you can
Speaker 3: still use cartoon characters to sell a box of cereal.
Speaker 1: In parts of.
Speaker 3: Latin America that's increasingly banned, so you'll no longer be
Speaker 3: able to find as much messaging that's specifically targeting children.
Speaker 1: After the break. How this lack of regulation helps pave
Speaker 1: the way for fast food sale in the world's most
Speaker 1: populous nation. Earlier this year, India surpassed China to become
Speaker 1: the world's most populous country with more than one point
Speaker 1: four billion people. And with so many people in India
Speaker 1: now eating fast food, I asked KI what food companies
Speaker 1: had to say about the potential health impacts of their products.
Speaker 3: TeleNova has cut sugar in its chocolate cereal by a fifth.
Speaker 3: Nesle notes that it voluntarily includes nutrition information on the
Speaker 3: front packaging of items sold in India, and Unilever has
Speaker 3: said that the company is committed to providing products that
Speaker 3: strike a balance between having enough nutrients but also being
Speaker 3: palatable for consumers. Many of these food companies will say
Speaker 3: that they are dressing a need in the Indian market.
Speaker 3: The history of India is one that has been dotted
Speaker 3: with famines, with a challenge of under nutrition malnutrition. Now
Speaker 3: what we're seeing is that the options are plentiful, but
Speaker 3: diets are increasingly being replaced with ones that involve many
Speaker 3: empty calories. Many of these food companies will also argue
Speaker 3: that all of the nutritional information is on the packaging
Speaker 3: of their items, and the public health activists will come
Speaker 3: back and say, yes, they're there, but they're buried on
Speaker 3: the back, They're not featured prominently on the front of
Speaker 3: the labeling. And in many cases, the front of the
Speaker 3: labeling will play up perhaps that a product has high
Speaker 3: vitamin D or that it's high in protein, but will
Speaker 3: minimize or ignore or under sell that the sugar content
Speaker 3: is very high, or that a product has many carbohydrates
Speaker 3: in it. So there are various ways of obscuring that
Speaker 3: information that public health activists feel is prevalent now in India,
Speaker 3: and it's ultimately at the expense, they say of consumers.
Speaker 1: As we've seen.
Speaker 3: Over the last decade or to the obesity rate in
Speaker 3: India has surged pretty dramatically, particularly among children, and that's
Speaker 3: of ever greater concern not just for activists, but also
Speaker 3: for parents, for schools, for public health officials, and for
Speaker 3: India more generally, as it attempts to balance its desire
Speaker 3: for more foreign business with of course, the necessity of
Speaker 3: protecting public health.
Speaker 1: This question of labeling is an important thing for a
Speaker 1: lot of people who are concerned about what people in
Speaker 1: India are eating. Why is labeling such a big deal?
Speaker 3: Regulation in general of food items is a very recent
Speaker 3: conversation in India, So until twenty eleven, there was no
Speaker 3: real regulatory that looked at food and food safety and
Speaker 3: how to educate consumers about the choices they're making when
Speaker 3: they go into the grocery store, and so there's still
Speaker 3: fairly limited public awareness about the dangers of many of
Speaker 3: these products. It's also important to note that India only
Speaker 3: really opened up its economy in the nineties, so until
Speaker 3: relatively recently, there were a few options available to many
Speaker 3: people in the country. These are very new entries, and
Speaker 3: therefore many people don't quite recognize the potential dangers of
Speaker 3: over consumption. Public health activists are very aware that ultimately
Speaker 3: the consumer makes the choice about what they want to
Speaker 3: eat or not eat. I think where some of the
Speaker 3: tension lies is how these products are marketed to children,
Speaker 3: where the choice is far murkier, and where you really
Speaker 3: have to have much more of a support system around
Speaker 3: you to understand what exactly you're putting into your about you.
Speaker 8: The labeling is a very stranger.
Speaker 2: The content is written a very tiny letters, you know,
Speaker 2: I mean, you don't have the patience, and most of
Speaker 2: it is in English.
Speaker 8: A lot of people can't treat English.
Speaker 2: So if a particular packet has a particular quantity of sugar,
Speaker 2: people aren't going to notice it because the letters are
Speaker 2: so tiny.
Speaker 1: When we come back, what is India's government doing to
Speaker 1: combat rising obesity rates? Given the health concerns associated with
Speaker 1: processed foods, especially in kids, I asked Partique what India's
Speaker 1: government was doing about it.
Speaker 2: A couple of years ago, there were meetings by the
Speaker 2: food regulator to talk about labeling and the meeting was
Speaker 2: attended by the activist company officials and the government officials,
Speaker 2: officials from the Food DEGLETA and they were trying to
Speaker 2: have a consensus on how labeling should be done in
Speaker 2: the food packets. So what we found out was the
Speaker 2: company officials they were sort of dominating the meeting. So
Speaker 2: that's why we.
Speaker 8: Haven't seen no big change in leveling in India.
Speaker 1: And a note here that India's Health Secretary and Chairperson
Speaker 1: of the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India did
Speaker 1: not respond to multiple requests from Bloomberg for comment about
Speaker 1: this story. Kai, you mentioned that childhood obesity rates in
Speaker 1: India have risen quite a bit. What are the statistics
Speaker 1: around obesity rates in general in India?
Speaker 3: Since India liberalized three decades ago, the adult obesity RAYA
Speaker 3: has surged. It's more than triple and among children, the
Speaker 3: rises the steepest in the world, behind Vietnam and Namibia.
Speaker 1: Kai and Critique report that as late as the nineteen nineties,
Speaker 1: India's target was to eradicate extreme hunger. The government put
Speaker 1: the focus on calories, not nutrition. Some global health experts
Speaker 1: have even said that being overweight was a symbol of
Speaker 1: luxury among the affluent. I asked Kai.
Speaker 3: About this, because these new food items processed food items
Speaker 3: are affordable and no more expensive the more traditional options.
Speaker 3: What we're seeing is that obesity is no longer a
Speaker 3: disease of the elite. It's now something that's far more
Speaker 3: widespread across India, touching many different demographics and income levels.
Speaker 1: Do you think that the government will begin to step
Speaker 1: in to try to address some of these concerns about
Speaker 1: health and nutrition?
Speaker 2: The comment should do it because all these activities are
Speaker 2: after them. So yeah, I mean, sooner or later they
Speaker 2: may do something. I remember, you know, I like a
Speaker 2: couple of years ago we did a story saying they
Speaker 2: were doing the opposite. At a press conference, the food
Speaker 2: secutive once said that, you know, we want to boost
Speaker 2: consumption of sugar in the country because there is a
Speaker 2: selfless I hope. I think the sooner or later government
Speaker 2: will make regulations stronger to sort of reduce or control
Speaker 2: sale of junk food in India.
Speaker 3: Last year, the Indian government proposed using health star ratings
Speaker 3: on the packaging of food, and though that system isn't
Speaker 3: yet in effect and could still change, and in fact
Speaker 3: has faced quite a bit of pushback from public health activists,
Speaker 3: the question is really an open one still about whether
Speaker 3: that kind of system will have an impact on curbing
Speaker 3: unhealthy purchases. And I think it's ultimately something that India
Speaker 3: and it's one point four billion people can no longer
Speaker 3: turn away from, particularly as OBC rates go up and
Speaker 3: as the country looks to be a real destination for
Speaker 3: various businesses.
Speaker 1: Thanks so much for coming on the show. Thank you,
Speaker 1: thanks for listening to us here at The Big Take.
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Speaker 1: Email us questions or comments to Big Take at Bloomberg
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Speaker 1: Vicky Vergolina. Our senior producer is Catherine Fink. This episode
Speaker 1: was produced by Zeneb Sidiki and Federica Romaniela. Phil de
Speaker 1: Garcia is our engineer. Our original music was composed by
Speaker 1: Leo Sidrin. I'm West Kasova. We'll be back tomorrow with
Speaker 1: another Big Take.