The Silicon Review ^Asia

PepsiCo, the American multinational food and beverage corporation, is now looking to foray into the South Indian markets to test its wafer-style chips resembling ‘papadam’, a lentil based appetizer quite popular in the region as a meal accompaniment. The new product will be available in the markets of Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Kerela under the Lay’s brand.

Dilen Gandhi, Senior Director, marketing for foods category at PepsiCo India, said that innovation with new formats and variants has always been Lay’s forte and with its regionalisation strategy, the firm hopes to build a deeper connection with its consumers. “With this launch, we have gone one step further by identifying everyday meal occasions as per regions and coming with a product that compliments the existing tastes and palates”, he added.

Lay’s also mentioned that it will be focusing on enhancing its snacks portfolio constantly in order to grab more consumers, and South India will just prove right as a key market for its food business expansion. After Haldiram, PepsiCo has the largest consumer base in the country. It has been noticed that the preference of packaged snacks over western snacks like potato chips is higher in the northern part of the country as compared to the south. Therefore, the south looks promising as a huge market for non-branded ‘papadam’ or ‘appalam’.

PepsiCo is a market leader in western snacks but lacks significance in traditional namkeen. Thus, its attempt with the marketing of local snacks might help it gain name in the traditional namkeen segment as well.