The Business & Management Review, Volume 5 Number 3 November 2014

An empirical investigation of consumer’s preference in RTE Market

Gunjan Malhotra
Institute of Management Technology, Ghaziabad, India
Amit Malhotra
Reliance Life Insurance India Pvt. Ltd New Delhi, India

Keywords
Branded packaged meals, ready-to-eat food products, empirical study, India
Abstract
Branded Packaged foods have become famous in the Indian markets and retail general stores supply
these products with sealed aluminum laminates. The purpose of the paper is to determine the factors
which affect the purchase decision of Indian consumers of ready-to-eat (RTE) foods. The research is
based on a sample of youth in the age of 20-30 years either working or studying in various colleges
across India and studied their consumption pattern of RTE foods. We studied five major players in
this market- MTR, Aashirvaad, Kitchens of India, Haldiram’s and Amul. We have used analysis of
variance techniques to understand the difference between the brands of RTE in Indian markets. The
paper concludes RTE foods have not yet been readily accepted by the Indian youth market, but there is
an immense market potential for this variety of foods. Moreover major factors that influence the
buying decision of consumer are convenience, taste and availability. The brands in the study perform
satisfactorily on the factors selected. Consumers believe that RTE food category should include more
variety at reasonably affordable prices which will carter the demand of this product in future.
Presently Haldiram is perceived as the best brand of RTE food products in terms of price and Amul in
terms of variety.

1. Introduction
People often associate consumption-related behaviours with the affective state they are
experiencing (Garg, Wansink and Inman, 2007). Consumers believe food advertising has
emerged as a big business. When we think of taste perception of new food products
available in the new emerging markets, we tend to think not only of vegetables or snacks but
also packaged ready-to-eat (RTE) food products. The RTE industry is characterized by high
concentration, high price-cost margins, large advertising-to-sales ratios and aggressive
introduction of new products (Nevo, 1999). These facts have made this industry a classic
example of a concentrated differentiated-products industry in which price competition is
approximately cooperative and rivalry is channeled into advertising and new product
introduction (Scherer, 1982). However despite our seemingly constant exposure to food, we
have remarkable difficulty in discerning one taste from another with just our taste buds
(Elder and Krishna, 2010). This choice has become even more difficult after the introduction
of varieties of RTE food products. With rapid urbanisation and change in socio-economic
status in India, there has been an increase in demand for convenience RTE food products.
Life in big cities of India has changed rapidly with increase in the disposable income.
People often associate consumption related behaviours with the affective state (sad versus
happy) they are experiencing. This has motivated many supermarkets to introduce variety
of RTE items in Indian markets. Some of the typical RTE Indian meal components include
Indian breads, pulaos, cereals, vegetables, lentils (dals), dosas, idlis, fish, chicken and

International Trade & Academic Research Conference (ITARC), 3-4th November 2014 UK 1