PepsiCo entrenches itself in nutrition space, launches Quaker Oats+ Milk

To boost nutritional content in its products, PepsiCo has launched Quaker Oats+Milk, expanding its breakfast portfolio. Available in a convenient, on-the-go format, Quaker Oats+Milk has been developed to meet the nutritional requirements of time-starved young Indians. Created using PepsiCo’s patented SoluOats technology, Quaker Oats+Milk is a combination of oats, fibre and milk, a commitment to reduce sugar, salt and saturated fat under the Grain Dairy Beverage category. The new products will be available in mango and almond flavours and will be priced at Rs 30 for a 180 ml tetra pack. The company also has plans to launch more variety in flavours.

At the brand launch press conference, D Shivakumar, Chairman, PepsiCo, India talked about four important points that relate to the brand and why they are important for India today-- health, nutrition, innovation and digital.

As part of expanding its nutrition portfolio, PepsiCo also launched Tropicana Essentials and Quaker Nutri Foods in the breakfast space. The nutrition market today stands at $21-23 million of which dairy is about $13 million. Finding opportunity in the nutrition space, Shivakumar, said, “It is a very big opportunity that will grow at very high double digit numbers over the next five years. We have great aspirations for this segment.”

“If you look at India today, one of the most important things that is changing is food habit. Today we see 25 per cent of Indians skipping breakfast because they believe it is a huge ritual and it is time consuming to prepare a complete breakfast. We took it as an opportunity and thought of how do we get Indians a good healthy nutritious breakfast which can be made in three to five minutes. We have Tropicana and Quaker in nutrition space. We have done a lot of innovation with both the brands. The last part is digital. Digital is truly a consumer playground. The consumers own digital, generate content on digital and trust their friends’ word on digital. One of the shifts we have seen on digital moves from a celebrity status to what we call a source of authority. To earn trust, consumers in the digital world are saying that I want the source of authority,” said Shivakumar.

To add value to what consumers want on digital, PepsiCo brought chef Vikas Khanna on board for the brand Quaker and PV Sindhu for another brand, both together bring a source of authority on the digital front. And now they have brought Tendulkar on board.

Sachin Tendulkar has worked closely with the R&D team at PepsiCo India to develop a product that aims to revolutionise the value-added dairy category.

The brand will initially be launched in 16-17 cities and will go deeper in the southern markets of Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh where Quaker is the strongest. PepsiCo also intends to launch more products under the Quaker brand in future.

Regarding expansion of PepsiCo’s Nutrition Category, Deepika Warrier, Vice-President, Nutrition Category, PepsiCo India, said, “With this launch, we have moved ahead with our purpose of adding nutrition to people’s lives. We have two power brands in the nutrition space and those are Tropicana and Quaker and we are very ambitious in growing them in India.”

Elaborating on the scale of launch, Warrier said, “This is a global launch. For now we are launching the product in two to three markets. India is one of the first markets, in addition we are also launching it in a couple of markets in South-East Asia. We have launched it in India as Quaker Oats+Milk. In Philippines, we have launched a similar product as Quaker good Start, but the proposition of Oats plus milk is same.”

Asked about the kind of market share they are looking at, Warrier replied, “There is no direct competition. So we actually don’t know the share of what? We are looking to get a share of consumers’ stomach or throat. We are creating the category is what I would like to say.”

PepsiCo is the pioneer in the category, so when asked what will be the foremost challenges in India, Warrier said, “The first challenge I would say is category creation. It is competing well-established players in the flavoured milk space who have got a very different cost structure. Secondly, it takes a lot of education for consumers to start adopting the product.”

Talking about the consumer insights that led to the launch of the brand, Warrier said, “Consumers are leading a very rushed lifestyle. Everyone is looking at DIY options. All want healthy mornings. We all know that India is a nutrition deficiency country unfortunately in both macro and micronutrients. Now consumers have also become health conscious.”

Warrier further said, “We captured two insights on the digital space. The consumers are looking into nutrition consumer space. People are very ambitious and want to go out and win every day. The combination of high ambition and lack of time is a very enriched space and brands are making the most of it.”

The company also intends to launch a mainline campaign featuring Tendulkar, but first aims at scaling up and strengthening the distribution network. “We’ll be doing more mainstream and traditional media in Southern states. In South, we’ll be taking the products to the towns as well and in North, we’ll only be launching in the big metros and will do more print and in-store advertising.”

Warrier also said, “Sampling and educating consumers is very important. We are going to be investing a lot of money behind the sampling of the products.”

“For this category, managing freshness becomes very important. What we are looking at are some channels that would go direct to consumers, like e-commerce, modern trade stores and top traditional stores in metros. The shelf life of these products is of six months,” added Warrier.

Not divulging much about the marketing spend for the brand, Warrier said, “The marketing investments are going to be very different. You won’t see typical marketing investments like a high decibel IPL sponsorship. It is going to be really about sustained sampling and trial generation.”

Speaking at the launch, master blaster and co-creator of Quaker Oats+Milk, Sachin Tendulkar said, “Straight drive, pull shot, upper-cuts and straight down the ground sixes; all those were factors of my preparation. If you’re not well prepared, you have already lost, and it all starts with a nutritious breakfast. This is the only thing that’s completely under your control. I’m excited today with the launch of Quaker Oats + Milk, a product from PepsiCo India that I’ve been a part of creating. It’s a great addition to your breakfast table, to give your mornings a head-start, with fibre, calcium, oats and milk; preparing you for the rigours of the day.”

Quaker Oats was launched in India in 2006. The brand Quaker is more than 130 years old and is a world leader in the oatmeal segment. In India, Quaker Oats is also available in variants such as Quaker Nutri Foods, Quick Cooking Oats, Oats Plus and a range of flavoured oats, including Chaat Style, Curry Magic, Homestyle Masala, Kesar flavour with Kishmish, Strawberry flavour with Apple and Tomato Veggie Surprise.

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