You can never take Indians out of Parle-G nor can you take Parle-G out of an Indian. A household brand since 1938, Parle-G biscuits have always been the motif of Parle products and emphatically, every Indian tea-tables.
Nothing has changed much in Parle-G biscuits. From the iconic young girl in its wrapper and that 'G for Genius' tagline to its cheap and affordable price rate, which gives you a packet full of cookies, enough to fill one's tummy. Incidentally, this must-have helped those thousands of stranded migrants across the nation grab a Parle-G packet when their empty pockets could not afford any other food items.
Parle-G sees a milestone in its sale
This in turn has led the brand to achieve a unique milestone in sales amid the lockdown hibernation as the fairly priced biscuits' demand went up massively in the country with people preferring to stack up easy and affordable foods.
According to Anuj Sethi, senior director, Crisil Ratings, which recently conducted a thorough analysis of FMCG players, "Consumers were taking whatever was available - be it premium or economy priced. Some players may have focused more on premium value SKUs as well."
"Players had been focusing on enhancing distribution reach, especially in rural areas in the past 18-24 months; this worked well for them during the pandemic," he added.
Although the makers of Parle-G biscuits, the Parle Products have refused to share its sale numbers, the brand has assured the lockdown months-from March to May end, have significantly been 'their best months in over eight decades.'
"We've grown our overall market share by nearly 5%. And 80– 90% of this growth has come from the Parle-G sales. This is unprecedented," said Mayank Shah, category head at Parle Products.
Lockdown and Parle-G
As the nation-wide lockdown called on a large scale availability of food, the company restocked its distribution channels within a week to guarantee its product availability at all retail outlets during different phases of the lockdown.
"This is a common man's biscuit; people who cannot afford bread – buy Parle-G," said Shah on the product's whopping demand.
Most of the state governments were also in constant touch with the brand, requisitioning them for the biscuits. In addition to this, several NGOs too 'bought humongous quantities' of the biscuits from them.
"We were lucky to have restarted production from March 25 onwards," he added.
Currently, Parle Products have 130 factories all over India and the biscuit brand falls under the 'below-Rs100 per kg' affordable / value category. This category holds one-third of the total industry revenues and accounts for over 50% of the volume sold.
Following Parle-G, Britannia's Good Day, Tiger, Milk Bikis, Bourbon, and Marie; along with Parle's Krackjack, Monaco and Hide & Seek have also had significant sale records during the lockdown days.
