Pepsi to spice up regional focus with papadam

The US food and beverages giant said it has taken inspiration from hand-made and home-dried crunchy ‘papad’ that is widely consumed with rice and rasam, dal or sambhar. The new product under its Lay's brand has been launched in Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Kerala.

“Lay’s has always been at the forefront of innovating with new formats and variants and our regionalisation strategy is a demonstration of our efforts to build a closer connect with our consumers," Dilen Gandhi, senior director, marketing for foods category at PepsiCo India, said. "With this launch, we have gone one step further by identifying everyday meal occasions as per regions and coming with a product that compliments the existing tastes and palates."

The company said it is constantly transforming its snacks portfolio to expand its consumer base and south India is a key market for its foods business.

PepsiCo is the second largest snacks maker in the country after Haldiram, but it has leadership position in the southern region. Also, unlike other parts of the country which have seen increasing consumer preference for packaged namkeen over western snacks such as potato chips, the south has always been a large market for unbranded papadam or appalam, a deep fried snack served as a complement to lunch or dinner.

The India arm of New York-headquartered PepsiCo is a market leader in potato chips and extruded snacks, but has a significantly lower salience in traditional namkeen.

PepsiCo's attempt is seen as a regionalisation strategy within its existing western snacks segment—it had earlier launched Kurkure with gingelly oil since it is popular in south India.

"Despite having strong R&D capabilities, parent’s support and deep pockets, Pepsi has not been able to crack the Indian namkeen market owing to high level of regional preference and taste," said a recent investor note by Edelweiss Securities.

Source:-https://retail.economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/food-entertainment/grocery/pepsi-to-spice-up-regional-focus-with-papadam/69570520