The love for Indian traditional snacks is spreading all over the world and its favourite tea-time snacks such as samosas, aloo bhujia and popular breakfast parathas have made their way to distant shores. The market for these snacks goes beyond Indians living abroad.
Bikano, one of India’s top snack companies, has an international sales contribution of about 8% of its total sales. The company is confident that demand for its frozen food and snacks will take up a bigger chunk of its turnover.
Dawinder Pal, head of marketing at Bikano, thinks that the best-selling markets for Indian snacks and frozen foods outside of India are the USA, Canada, New Zealand, Australia, the European nations, Hong Kong, Dubai, Qatar, Singapore, and Malaysia. In our last financial year, we made ₹100 crore through our exports alone, and in the current fiscal, we are expecting a growth of over 25%.
By targeting the Indian diaspora, Bikano established its presence globally by targeting the Indian diaspora and, soon enough, foreigners also started growing fond of its Aloo bhujia, samosas, and parathas.
We have come to notice a change in consumer patterns—for a while now, people of diverse origins have been showing a keen interest in purchasing and consuming Indian products. There is a lot of traction for our products in the Asian community. “At present, our key consumers in the international market come from across the board, both of Indian and non-Indian origins,” shared Pal.
According to Pal, aloo bhujia, Bikaneri bhujia, lajawab mixture, tasty khatta meetha, frozen samosa, tandoori naan, and paratha are some of Bikano’s best-selling products abroad. Some of its ready-to-cook desserts like gulab jamun and rasgulla have also found their way into international markets.
iD Fresh Food, a consumer brand known for idli and dosa batters, started its product distribution in the UAE market seven years ago. Now it has set up shop in Saudi Arabia, the US and the UK.
P.C. Musthafa, co-founder of iD Fresh Food, said that the international business contributes nearly 30% of iD’s revenue today. “In the next two years, their aim is to get the number to 50% and make iD a ₹1,000 crore company,” he added.
Apart from its varieties of parathas, even Indian fresh food batter is gaining popularity offshore.
“I strongly believe that Indian food will appeal to a global palate as long as we make it accessible and aspirational. It has been a long-cherished dream that drives us at iD.
People are gradually moving away from junk food globally, which gives us an understanding that the definition of snack has undergone a massive change over the years,” said Musthafa.
After seeing one-third of its revenue coming from the international market, Musthafa says there is still a huge demand unmet and the market is only growing stronger.
As per the Ministry of Commerce and Industry, India’s export of miscellaneous processed items such as Indian snacks, sauces, starch products, vegetable flours, among others, witnessed a growth of 36.4% in April-June 2022-23 as compared to the previous quarter in the last fiscal. The share of the food processing industry in India’s total agricultural exports continues to swell, which is driven by frozen food and snacks.
On the back of this demand, Indians have taken the humble samosas and parathas global, and the world’s palate will never be the same.