How can we market RTE better?

Term 4

Consumer Behaviour (DMKT403)

How can we market RTE better?

Report submission for the course of Consumer Behaviour

By

Anuj Tyagi

DM22217

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How can we market RTE better?

Table of Contents:

Serial Content Page

Number Number
1 Introduction 1
2 Relevance to Consumer Behaviour 1
3 Challenges 5
3.1 Homemeade 5
3.2 Delivery 5
3.3 Pricing 5
3.4 Availability 5
3.5 Nutrition 5
4 What can be done? 6
4.1 Emotional connection 7
4.2 Attractive advertising 7
4.3 Hedonic Purchasing 7
4.4 Positioning 7
4.5 Engagement 8
5 Conclusion 8
6 References 9

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1. Introduction:

Living in the 21st Century, I doubt there is a place in our nation where people are still unaware

of Ready to Eat or RTE food items. I come from a small village in Uttar Pradesh, and when I

visit there, I see my cousins having cornflakes for breakfast sometimes and Maggi for snacking

in the evening. While not a lot would be able to understand its worth to go out and buy it, they

at least know about the concept. India was always known as the land of spices; food and

agriculture seem more of our tradition than mere jobs that need to be done. The agricultural

sector in India has experienced a series of revolutions including the Green Revolution, the

White Revolution, the Yellow Revolution and the Blue Revolution. This helped India to be a

great place of growth for the food and beverage industry. With the growth in the food industry,

the growth of Ready to Eat and Ready to Cook segments also started flourishing lately. India

is a place with a real GDP per capita income of INR 86,559 per year as of 2021, which translates

roughly to INR 238 per day. With such low levels of earnings, RTE is more of a luxury rather

than a necessity. This, in turn, makes it a hedonic product, which does not hold high value in

terms of taste or nutrition, so why is it constantly gaining momentum and attracting more than

ever consumers to itself? This is where the production and marketing departments of such

organisations come in shaking hands and bring a better value proposition to their consumers.

2. Relevance to Consumer Behaviour:

Dan Ariely spoke about how consumers are irrational and so did Ernest Dichter, in his book

“The Strategy of Desire”, where he stated how consumers tend to make their decisions based

on emotions and subconscious fears and whims, which had little to do with the product. I have

been cooking Maggi for over a decade, while I hold it in my highest regards as it has been with

me through long college nights when we used to get hungry or just on a casual Sunday, though,

one thing we always were disappointed by was the time it took to cook. Nestle markets it like

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2 minutes instant noodles, but we very well knew it took 5-10 minutes to cook properly before

we can enjoy it. This is where we can see how giants like Nestle use their hedonic value and

consumers no more care about the actual product attributes. Over the years, Nestle has made a

connection with its consumers, they have made a place in minds of mothers and children alike,

and that is exactly what every other player in the market is trying to do, make a connection

with their consumers. Brands are trying to position themselves in a way to establish a

connection.

McCain’s campaign of, “Bahar se mangaya? Nahi! Ghar par McCain hai banaya!” was one

where they positioned themselves to be as good and fresh as restaurant ordered snacks.

Figure 1: McCains RTE advertisement

Over time, brands realised that the Indian market has traditionally always relied on home-

cooked meals where “love” was a key ingredient during food preparation. RTE essentially

eliminated this involvement and it perhaps didn’t sit well with Indian consumers. To make their

consumers feel more involved in the process, brands have started introducing different recipes

to their RTE and RTC foods making consumers believe it was more of “our choice” rather than

“their choice”.

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Figure 2: Maggi showcasing how their product range can be used to create different dishes

This is where Ready to Cook meals also gained a good market share which allowed Indian

households to be involved in the process to a certain level. MTR foods did this wonderfully by

their campaign, “Sunday ho toh aisa!”. From the article, “Making routine customer

experience fun”, it is quite evident how tweaking concepts slightly to provide a better

experience to consumers will fetch good results. MTR took a boring activity of making RTE

foods into a “family fun time activity” on a Sunday.

Figure 3: MTR RTE foods Figure 4: MTR "Sunday ho toh aisa" campaign

With time, the RTE food industry kept reinventing itself to fit consumer preferences. With

current consumptions being higher than ever (Pre-Covid). Assocham (Associated Chamber of

Commerce and Industry of India), in a recent survey, stated that about 79% of Indian

households prefer these RTE foods or instant foods, sighting reasons such as time constraints

with people living more and more in nuclear families, both working parents, people living away

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from families and many more. But they still want to have a nutritious alternative than to spend

hours in the kitchen after work. While RTE foods gained a lot of popularity, one inevitable

truth is people change and so does their preferences. Soon people started feeling that these RTE

foods are not a healthy choice to which Gits came up with a campaign.

Gits came up with, “Great Khana, No Drama”, showcasing how a lot of brands use

preservatives that aren’t healthy and tapped into the consumer behaviour of dissonance which

would put them at ease while buying Gits as it didn’t contain any preservatives.

Figure 5:Gits "Ghar ka khana, No drama" campaign

In recent years, brands have shifted their focus from kids and homemakers to young

professionals and families now. In the emerging generation, women aren’t always expected to

make food for the family, neither does she have time to prepare it.

On one hand, where the RTE food segment is still picking up pace in India, it is well established

in western parts of the world; and this is about similar products which are sold in India for that

matter. With Indian consumers spread across the world, they don’t have as many means to find

Indian food. These places RTE foods seem to be mostly the source for their nostalgia. In

addition, Westerners who like spicy Indian cuisine find RTE food very convenient with a range

of foods available from North India to South India.

So what is the hindrance in India?

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3. Challenges:

3.1 Homemade food: First and foremost thing that is a challenge is it is directly competing

with Homemade food. The very same thing that consumers associate with mother’s

love and a sense of comfort. This is more interaction with the food prepared than

anyone can expect.

3.2 Delivery: With time, food delivery apps have gain immense popularity to an extent

where it is not just aggregators like Zomato and Swiggy, but restaurants themselves

stepping into the delivery game. Earlier delivery was associated with Domino’s or

Pizza Hut, but now, you can get complete meals of different cuisines at your service

just by a simple click or tap on mobile phones. Here, they don’t have to leave the

comfort of their home all the while experiencing great service from the restaurants.

This still gives you a chance to interact with service providers, which is completely

absent in the RTE foods segment.

3.3 Pricing failure: The price of RTE food sold in India is considered to be higher given

the quality and quantity consumers receive out of it. Therefore, Indian consumers find

it unreasonable to pay such a high price for RTE foods available.

3.4 Availability: As much as brands spread awareness, if people aren’t able to consume it

enough, it will not matter. RTE foods are mostly available at Modern Trade stores like

hypermarts such as Big Bazaars, DMarts, etc. Ambi Parameswaran in her article,

“Ready-to-eat brands, not yet a palatable concept”, tells how MT stores display RTE

to signal customers about themselves being modern. With the absence, or, the selective

availability of Modern Trade in smaller cities, they lose out on a plethora of consumer

interactions. These are the areas where most people believe packaged food is not good

for health or cannot be stored for long making them sceptical of RTE food.

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3.5 Nutrition: With increased attention towards health and nutrition, Indian consumers

have started avoiding products that use preservatives. Several brands have started

making their way around it now, such as Gits, but there is still seem to be some

hesitancy believing that an RTE food can stay good for so long without any

preservatives.

Essentially, consumer preferences are changing, and the market needs to keep up

Attribute satiation model: The current market doesn’t excite the consumers anymore with

them concerned about their health, where RTC food helps increase human involvement, RTE

foods still fail to do so effectively.

Cognitive dissonance: The feeling of gluttony and eating processed food lead to dissonance,

making the options healthier can help reduce this discomfort/ uneasy feeling.

4. What can be done?

The RTE food segment needs to focus on basic consumer behaviour. Fishbein model tells us

about beliefs, attitudes, and behaviour. It tells how people don’t really purchase a product or

its attributes, but the benefits. So RTE food industry needs to segment itself based on the same

principle.

Along with this, they can also use the 5 factors of testing the product to understand what is

working in their favour; like,

Relative advantage: Low; people prefer homemade or restaurant food

Compatibility: Medium; Though not as prevalent, it is getting socially acceptable with passing

time

Observability: Low to medium; low availability is resulting in this

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Trialability: High, very convenient and fast

Complexity: Low, easy to use and understand

To incorporate the above-mentioned things, we can try the following to market RTE better:

4.1 Emotional connection: Consumers relate to stories, these stories then translate into

brand recall, which can help increase sales. Right now, RTE as an entire category seem

to be struggling, so brands can first create a strong market for RTE and then compete

for it, or, focus on quality and availability more to make the consumer feel comfortable

enough being part of their stories. An Indian consumer’s image of food is always what

their mother made for them. If they can create a similar “affect” they have their foot

in the door. This can be formed through storytelling, but to be truly effective, they need

to establish trust and be forthcoming in their advertisement about health information.

This helps consumers reducing any discomfort or dissonance which will also lead to

an increase in brand awareness and brand recall.

4.2 Attractive advertising: There are lots of categories that are functioning just because

they got popular, like the instant noodles category, popularised by Maggi. RTE

products need that for themselves and it can be achieved by the right advertising and

promotional activities. Once popularised, impulse buys can also trigger sales and

eventually inspire loyalty. Advertising plays a major role in brand recall. McCains,

Maggi, Chings, are some that have been able to do so with some of their campaigns.

4.3 Hedonic purchase behaviour: Making themselves hedonic by differentiating can

help as the RTE food products are driven by impulse buying and variety-seeking

behaviour of consumers.

4.4 Positioning: The RTE food segment has always garnered heat onto themselves

because of their positioning. If brands can position themselves as natural, free of

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preservatives, nutritious, a great chunk of the RTE food segment problems can vanish

away. They can send out this message by packaging, like green triggers mind to focus

on nature and freshness, right advertising, and establishing trust is the key to change

their positioning from unhealthy to not so unhealthy, fun-filled dishes. Packaging can

include containers that make it truly RTE and consumers can have it anywhere without

worrying about cutleries. Ambi Parameswaran in her article, “Ready-to-eat brands,

not yet a palatable concept” again discussed how they are making things easier by

providing solutions to general issues with using/cooking RTE/RTC foods. Using

words and phrases like, “Homemade”, “Fresh”, “Natural”, etc puts consumers at ease.

ELM and Fishbein models can be used to achieve this goal.

4.5 Engagement: Roping in food bloggers and reviewers can create an image in

consumers’ minds of equating RTE food with other food these reviewers/bloggers eat.

Platforms where people who have a taste of RTE food can interact and build a

community around it.

5. Conclusion:

John Jantsch’s article, “The Ultimate Measure of Marketing Success”, talks about what

successful marketing is, it speaks about several parameters such as sales, profits, etc, but

ultimately, it all boils down to one thing “How much does your consumer trust you?” All the

metrics stated earlier is a way of the trust shown by the consumer. Jantsch says, customers

don’t care about what you sell, or your business or you for that matter, or, they may love your

products, your business and even you, but the most important thing is, what that love does for

them. Indian consumers love food in all ways it comes to them. They have a great variety to

offer. If the RTE food segment can work on the above suggestions and execute them well. It

can result in better sales numbers and may open huge avenues to experiment with their selection

of products as well.

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6. References:

6.1 https://statisticstimes.com/economy/country/india-gdp-per-

capita.php#:~:text=86%2C659%20as%20compared%20to%20Rs,GDP%20(nominal)

%20per%20capita.

6.2 https://aswathicherkkil.medium.com/marketing-ready-to-eat-products-17eb60e8e13b

6.3 https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/better-marketing-rte-foods-india-from-consumer-

behavior-mukund-iyer/

6.4 https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/consumer-behaviour-analysis-ready-eat-rte-

products-india-geeta-p/

6.5 https://www.indiaretailing.com/2020/01/22/food/food-grocery/ready-to-eat-food-

millennials-new-favourite/

6.6 https://www.netscribes.com/ready-to-eat-market-in-india-growth-trends-challenges-

and-key-trends/

6.7 https://www.google.com/imghp?hl=EN

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