Unwrapping the Potential of the Indian Snack Industry

Unwrapping the Potential of the Indian Snack Industry According to market researcher Euromonitor, sweet and savoury snacks have grown by 26%, highest within packaged food segment between 2010 and 2015. About four years ago, packaged namkeen had replaced western snacks such as potato chips and finger sticks as the largest segment within branded salty snacks market.

"Domestic manufacturers are increasing their distribution and penetration into rural India and have launched smaller packs at lower price points," Euromonitor said in a recent report.

The research firm expects the salty snacks segment to surpass biscuits with sales of nearly Rs 35,801 crore by 2020, up from Rs 19,151 crore in 2015.

As per an article in The Economic Times, Indian consumers seem to have rediscovered their taste for traditional snacks such as farsan, bhujia and namkeen going by the impressive growth rate of local firms such as Balaji Wafers and Bikanervala at a time when their multinational rivals are struggling.

Local snacking companies such as Balaji Wafers, Prataap Snacks, Bikanervala, Bikaji Foods and DFM Foods have recorded sales growth of 8-35%, in the year ended March 2016 even as international food majors such as GSK Consumer, PepsiCo's food division and Mondelez struggled to grow their business amid slowing rural demand and discretionary spends.

However, it may be difficult for these domestic players to maintain their growth momentum as larger rivals are entering their turf with similar pricing and products. Parle Products, ITC and PepsiCo have all launched similar range as smaller regional players in the past few years.

In any case, the packaged snack market continues to offer exciting growth prospects for manufacturers. Indian consumers are increasingly inclined to hygiene and quality; wellpackaged snacks are associated with greater credibility, longer shelf life and better product quality. More snack companies are selling their products across the whole of India, and are even exporting them to countries abroad.

Hence they require packaging that can protect the product quality and endure the toughest stages of the distribution chain, including shipments and other handling options. Moreover, since snacks are largely impulse purchases (increasingly by children), the use of packaging design as an effective point-of-sale strategy has become the obvious choice of manufacturers’ to influence purchase decisions.

Nichrome, the leading snacks packaging machine manufacturer, continuously innovates and adapts technology to cater to the growing and diverse needs of the snacks industry.

Nichrome’s Vertical Form Fill Seal (VFFS) Snackpack is a speedy solution that takes the inherent fragility and odd shapes of snack foods into account while ensuring minimised costs and a highly efficient packaging process.

Snackpack is an ideal potato chip packing machine designed for quick and easy tool-less changeover of size parts resulting in minimum product falling height. Its perforation system makes it possible to produce a chain of pouches, and its unique stripping action before cross sealing avoids product entrapping in seal.

Nichrome’s Snackpack automatic snack packaging machines deliver speeds of up to 150 packs per minute. The gas-filled pouches provide protection for brittle snack products such as potato chips, while the vertical concept of the packaging solution helps to speed up the process. They allow easy format changes to produce CSPP and gusseted pouches of different sizes besides perforated chains of pouches.

Apart from offering versatility and efficiency, Nichrome’s Snackpack machines have also been designed to ease operational and maintenance challenges. Operations are simplified and to facilitate maintenance, they are also equipped with servo-technology that helps to reduce and eliminate technical errors.

Besides snacks, Nichrome’s Snackpack is also suited for dry fruit pouch packaging, biscuit packaging and for other products like Wrapped Candies, Macaroni, Biscuits, Pasta, Seeds, Breakfast Cereals, etc.

For more information visit us :- http://www.nichrome.com