Akansha Pandey (cbedit@imaws.org)
Research by Mordor Intelligence highlights that the global bakery ingredients market is projected to grow at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 6.12% during the forecast period 2022-2027 and India with its increasing population and disposable incomes, is projected to be the fastest-growing market globally, during the forecast period. The fast-paced lifestyles have paved the demand for convenience food – which are the signature product of the bakery industry and has made several bakery products the go-to option for people.
However, with fitness taking centre stage, more so post COVID, consumers are also showing this trend of choice for healthy alternatives in the baking segment – with high protein, high fibre, clean labelling and low preservatives. Additionally, people have developed a global palate and being big foodies in India, they want to experiment, celebrate and binge on newfound, attractive and eye-catching baked delicacies.
“If you see ten years back, we used to consume a lot of Indian dairy-based desserts or Indian sweets like earlier we used to have Gulab Jamun or Rasmalai after having a meal. But now people are more influenced by western culture and want to have cheesecakes, pastries or ice creams after a meal. India has one of the youngest populations globally and the purchasing power is increasing in this age bracket. Earlier we used to consume bakery products, cakes or pastries once a year but nowadays it is not restricted to only birthdays. Now we want to relish bakery products on a day to day basis in our daily lives,” says Akshit Gupta, Chief of Strategy and Business Development, Asha Ram & Sons, a Delhi-based bakery ingredient manufacturer.
Also, since a lot of people are getting environment-conscious and moving towards vegetarianism, the trend of eggless bakery products is setting in. Bakersville India, the bakery ingredient manufacturer from Indore, Madhya Pradesh is aggressively planning to launch vegan and organic ingredient alternatives. Neeraj Murdia, Director, Bakersville India states, “Under the vegan segment, we are trying to find the milk replacement. Our research and development are already underway. This is a permanent trend of eggless bakery products and it is here to stay. People cannot differentiate between the egg-based cake and the eggless one. Both taste similar and equally good enough. Gluten-free and organic bakery ingredient markets are very niche and they have a very limited customer base right now. This thing is happening at a very micro level and it has a long way to go. The industry is working on rich recipes with fresh fruit taste and natural colours and flavours.”
COVID also gave birth to the number of home bakers and this trend has been increasing since then. Initially, the bakery ingredient manufacturers were selling their raw materials through their traditional offline distribution network but now the count of home bakers is booming with time and a number of bakery ingredient brands have hopped on to the e-commerce bandwagon with Amazon and Flipkart, shares Kapil Chopra, Director, Leziyon (bakery ingredient manufacturer based out of Delhi).
“With the advent of home bakers, people are buying in smaller lots as well, basically for their family. New age home bakers are buying in multiples of 500 gms or 250 grams. We were used to doing bulk packing of our products in 1 kg to 5 kg of packing. But now we have reduced our pack sizes to 250 gms to cater to this new consumer segment as well. The market size for eggless bakery products is also on the rise. Similarly, there are other bakery ingredients which have become more popular other than the premixes. The demand for fondant has shot up. Consumers were not aware of this sugar paste initially which we call fondant but home bakers are beautifying their cakes with fondant,” adds Chopra.
The consumption of regular cakes is also going down and there is a big shift in the consumption from regular cream cakes to dry cakes and tea cakes, declares Gaurang Bhasin, Director, Indo Bakels (bakery ingredient manufacturer located in Raigad, Maharashtra). “Simultaneously, there is a big demand for ice-cream cakes which has taken over the regular cakes at home for celebrating special occasions. Instead of the cream in between, there is ice cream in it in a frozen condition. Everything else remains the same except the cream which is ice form and its temperature controlled. Regular cream cakes have ruled the market for quite a long time. The demand is now moving towards ice-cream cakes, dry cakes and tea cakes,” says Bhasin.
He also highlights that there is not much innovation happening around cakes. People are accepting anything that is different. Also now the supply chain for the frozen ice-cream cake is much better which makes the reach much better now. One can order online for the ice-cream cake, whereas earlier people had to go and pick up the ice-cream cake in person and by the time it reached home it had already melted. The infrastructure has gone up in the ice-cream industry and because of that, the consumption is scaling up. People are liking more ice cream cakes rather than regular cakes, exclaims Bhasin.
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