Published in: afaqs!

Date: 31/08/2020

Kwality Foods has introduced muesli with turmeric, honey, and ginger

“If you’re not into immunity, what are you doing with your life?” It’s perhaps the most important question today for people and especially for brands. It’s no wonder then a good number of companies are now offering products or tweaking their existing product line to include immunity and health in some form.

However, when we read that Kwality Foods was offering muesli with turmeric, honey, and ginger, it made us stop for a second. A western breakfast dish infused with ingredients that have been consumed in India for thousands of years, talk about globalisation during a pandemic. We caught up with Naresh Pagariya, MD of Kwality Foods to understand the brand’s motivation behind this concoction, the competition, and what lies ahead.

How did you come up with the plan to introduce muesli with honey, turmeric and ginger?

Muesli was one of those categories which was coming up very rapidly and even though it started as a western concept, a lot of Indians have accepted it. During the pandemic, immunity has always been on the top of people’s minds. It’s a new disease and doctors recommend you to develop your immunity. And that’s where our traditional turmeric, ginger, and honey came into the picture.

As a food products company, we had a lot of discussions and asked our internal teams how do we develop something that will take care of people’s immunity and at the same time do something on the lines of an Indo-Western concept – combine Indian things like haldi and turmeric (loads of benefits) and the western concept of muesli that is healthy, nutritious, and convenient.

Muesli and corn flakes are accused of being coated in sugar. Was it the ‘immunity’ aspect that led you to get rid of the sugar?

Previous to the pandemic, we had this question in mind: Whatever products as a company Kwality makes, how can we make it healthier? We, urbanites, have a big problem: We don’t exercise. When the sugar aspect came in front of us, we asked what can be done? Our R&D team said we can look at an alternative; we completely removed sugar from our products.

Does the increase of in-home breakfast cooking and consumption concern you about sales?

The pandemic changed a lot of food and eating habits. During the lockdown, people to some extent tried different ot elaborate food menus (in-home). But, post the lockdowns when offices and businesses restarted, the old food habits returned especially among the urbanities – busy mornings and quick breakfast.

How’re you apprising the ready-to-eat breakfast brands?

It’s an upcoming range in the market and to be very frank, we’ve been working on certain more innovative things like that in the category. If we can combine our traditional products and make it more convenient for people, it will be another great category to be in.

Many Indians are particular about their food and don’t want to change but want convenience. It’s a good emerging trend and it’s a matter of one or two quarters before we (Kwality Foods) will be there in that category.