Prices are important. Demand and Supply helps us arrive at the price. This is what we learn on the first day of any economics lecture. Real world is little more complicated than that. It has a government and there are interventions.
For example, Cereals and Sugar have a minimum support price (MSP as popularly called) in India. It is largely unaffected by consumer behavior. It beautifully reflects in the charts below. Here, rather than market forces, government decides on the price. Unlike cereals and sugar, government doesn’t have Minimum Support price (MSP) for vegetables. …
Don’t we all love predictability in the market. Agreed, some will find volatility more profitable. We all knew Singapore is stable, few outsider will consider this as the condition for predictability. Data scientist can’t have a simpler job than this. And how did I come to this conclusion ? By looking at its retail and food sales over last 5 years. I could be guilty of jumping to this conclusion with single dimensional data. Yet, at a cultural level, many of you who have been to this city country Singapore, will not disagree with me. There is certain order in…
If you are reading the latest consumer food basket report, I bet you are late. Why ? The consumer behavior in 2021 is not the same as 2018 or 2019. This divergence can still be explained as the time scale is in years. But in category like food, two consecutive week might be surprisingly different, telling us that characteristic of the consumer’s choices has changed in this short time frame. Shouldn’t your communication change too ? Company’s actions could become more adaptive by mapping it to consumer’s behavior at any point of time.
Here, I use food basket as an…
Because what you see could have been hand crafted. With right mix of talent, imagination and effort, one can attempt to create that social media ‘trend’. When someone tells you an event or a person is trending, ask in return — is it ‘organic’ or ‘hand-made’ ? With lot of science and a bit of art, a data scientist should be able to tell the difference.
Do you know companies are training people to be influencer on the social media ? Like an university, they are churning out ‘skilled’ digital influencers. As a matter of fact, there are online courses…
‘Consumers are at home’ is a ‘black swan’ event. It came unexpectedly and will go just as unexpectedly. At least, we can hope so. Comfort and convenience food are doing the rounds to get across the point that ‘consumers are at home’. This outlier period in recent consumer history has created unanticipated demand and opportunities in the food industry. Some segment more so than others. Have we also started asking what will the brands do when consumers are not at home any more ?
The good news is that the market size for food as a sector has already expanded…
That our favorite noodle is Hakka Noodles. And we like rice noodles and regularly look for it. The pandemic has only given hakka the intensity but both have made their mark even before the covid19 lock down and trend in ‘comfort food’ picked up. Consumer whispers to us all the time. I also cannot help but find the connection with south-east Asian cuisines (Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia), which Indians have taken so favorably too.
Every time we hear a discussion around ‘maida in noodles’, we immediately see ‘atta noodles’ as the alternative. But that needn’t be. It would be interesting to…
One could say that batter is not getting the importance it deserve. So far packaged batter is primarily used for dosa and idli. And why stop there ? It could easily become the primarily ingredient for host of new dishes. It can make home cooking easy and fun !
One company has expanded the batter category beyond the regular consumers aided by innovation. It’s been rewarded too. It’s very close to the Amazon AWS moment, where the cloud computing company had 6–7 years of free run to build its business without any competition. And yes, it doesn’t happen often. …
And it’s packaged juice. It needed a pandemic to lift itself after falling for past 5–6 quarters. The trajectory of juice is unique. It just saw sharp fall in early 2019 and stayed there. To confirm this we searched for sector report or news story that might have captured this development. We found a story from ET which confirms it.
Packaged Juice drinkers in India would have noticed limited juice options in the stores from the early to middle of 2019. Some flavors like vegetable, tomato went off the shelf in Bangalore and availability of popular flavor was also inconsistent…
Indians have taken a liking to Thai curry. From no trace of significance in 2018, Thai curry is the 4th most popular curry in 2020. Egg and Fish being the 1st and 2nd in people’s interest when they explore curry online. Indians, in general, with its love for ‘spicy’ would have a natural pull for thai cuisine. To come to think of it, this shouldn’t be surprising at all. We have similar tropical climate, and similar spices grown in both the region. But why did it take so much time for us to discover this flavor ? …
The roads were deserted. One left home only when it was absolutely unavoidable. This was the scene from March end that continued for few more weeks. Confined in, one would expect our eating or taste bud to reflect this reality. And it did for the most but Pani Puri. The restrictions and the added concern of contact-food, made the walk to the corner pani-puri shop little tricky and out of reach for most. What was feasible ? Having it at the comfort of our home. And so we did.
The data tells the story.
Interest in panipuri and its masala…
abhijit maheswari
I like to decipher patterns whether it’s from robot sensor or digital footprints left by humans. AI, Robotics, Mathematics & Poetry interests me
