COVID-19 has pushed many people to relook at their health and food afresh, many nutrition brands have noticed the yawning gap between demand and supply. Since there is little control on the quality of air and water, mothers have focused largely on nutrition, which has resulted in robust growth in the nutritional food market. The brands which were mostly focused on children segments also seem to be performing well as young mothers are increasingly concerned about their health.
In November 2020, when the group of young people founded Adthera Consumer Brands and introduced many nutritional supplements in the form of Gummy Bears, the product line was majorly focused on catering to the need of children, as its target consumer base. Gummy Bears gained popularity in a short plan due to its goodness of minerals and multivitamins, which has successfully attracted local as well as foreign buyers in North America and Europe. Later, the founder of the company Rohit Anand has received a good response in the home country, where people were interested in other nutritional food products. The founder soon realized that plane candies alone won’t make the business viable, so he added few more products in the form of millet and oats muesli and chocolate-orange peel muesli as healthy breakfast for kids.
Many nutritional brands in India have focused on the principle of creating healthy food products for kids that are delicious, fun, and healthy. Adthera is not the first startup in India to launch such products. In 2016, Slurrp Farm, founded by Shauravi Malik and Meghana Narayan had launched organic and nutritional food for toddlers and children. Slurrp Farm mainly focused on multigrain baby cereals and breakfast food products. In less than three years, the company crossed the boundary by introducing the customized product range with 32 products in India, UK, UAE, Singapore, and many other countries.
Last year, just in a span of a year, the pandemic situation has increased health awareness in the society which has resulted in a surge in demand for health products in an urban region, mostly via the direct-to-customer platform and major e-commerce marketplaces. The traction for these brands has been heartening, and many brands such as Slurrp Farm has grown by 300% since the pandemic. After the outbreak of COVID-19, nutritional brands have started focusing on minute details and many of them have completely shunned white flour and white sugar in their products.
Keeping in mind the love for Ayurveda among Indians, many brands like Naturamore for Kids has re-launched their protein powder in chocolate cookie flavor with added herbs. Unsurprisingly, the product has taken off after the initial constraints on movements in the last year. Internet-savvy young parents are looking at parenting as a science of deep study, where a lot of thoughts and investment are going into it, and there is a sense of preciousness in life. Thoughtful product launches are gaining traction as immunity is becoming the final frontier where budding startups are riding on the current health wave and consumer’s proclivity.
