Market Insights and Nutritional Trends from Nestle's chief

We recently came across a rare interview with a major food marketing and processing firm. It is not often when a well known food brand leader engages the Indian media to share their vision and goals. Parsing between the marketing nuances, we thought Nestle's Worldwide Executive Director Mr Nandanand Kishore, had some interesting observations about food and nutrition trends.

• First, the marketing spiel. Nestle's largest portfolio of brands is in the processed food and snack categories. While such foods are inherently not healthy, Mr Kishore coined an interesting term, 'Responsible Pleasure'. He believes that between the fried snacks, frozen processed foods and such, it may be possible to strike a balance between taste and nutrition. Right there, we knew that he seems like a seasoned marketing professional but what caught our attention was what he felt about Indian nutritional intake later.

• For the first time worldwide, over 50% of the worlds population is living in urban environments. Not surprisingly, India is leading the pack of rural exodus to urban centers. This metric expected to only move one way. Mr Kishore spins consumption of processed food being better as fresh food consumption in India. The point we almost agreed with is that Indian consumers are often not aware of the food source. Chemical fertilizers and harmful pesticides remain constant hazards among fresh produce. Processors like Nestle claims to screen out such tainted produce making their processed products relatively safer.

• By 2050, India's demand for food and nutrition is expected to double. Food production is definitely not at pace with the projected demand. For instance, though India is the world largest dairy producer, it is not because of our production efficiency. Our per animal productivity is 10th in the world for dairy. At the end of the day, food suppliers and distributors will gravitate towards the cost effective source of production and today Indian agriculture practices have become outdated and needs major infusion of funding and technology.

• Nestle is leading the pack of over a dozen major food brands to reduce the salt, sugar and fat content in their products. Allegedly, hundred of million tonnes of transfats have been removed from current snack and processed products. With that said, we still felt the aggressive F&B industry marketing really puts the onus of healthy snack choices on the customer and most Indian customers are not very informed.

• Lastly, Mr Kishore seems to have a noble cause close to heart. Women often receive less nutrition in developing nations like India. Supposedly it may be due to them being late or last in the family eating order. This has long term impact during pregnancy and during the girl child's youth. Babies who suffered malnutrition have been shown to be predisposed to Diabetes and Blood Pressure ailments as adults. Upto 30% of Indians are said to be Diabetic which translates into the largest Diabetic population in the world.

Overall, the interview was worth a watch. Mr Kishore pitches processes food industry as a long stay in our society and ventures a few data points which indicate the safe & smart production with ethical & efficient distributed will prevail in an increasingly competitive industry. The community should take heart that this should translate as opportunities in agri production, packaging, value addition and as always, in marketing. What do you think?