The CLEAN SLATE
Crux- Branding Based on Clean Eating
It's a concept I call Unbranding is the new branding.
History
The fittest people today are the people in their mid-40s. Believe it or not. The reason is these are the folks who were born in the late 70s and early 80s and were the first to view the private sector era and now are in senior, mid-senior positions having generated some wealth. But unfortunately, many of these folks went through unhealthy periods in their life.
I know many managers and listened to their stories on how one got diabetes, how one had severe migraines, and how another one lost his vision for 4 hours due to excessive workload (all true stories).
So what happened? What changed? Well many of them realized that wealth can be re-generated but this lesson can be said confidently by largely those who have generated wealth at least once. After toiling with their health for some time they found that equilibrium. But if the damage was done at the end getting to that equilibrium meant pushing the gas at the other end.
Enter Clean Eating and Workouts.
We will discuss clean eating. People are smart today. The same Indian audience who would change their consumption patterns on what others were doing in the 90s right from using the same soap, to the same brand of rice today feel confident to be different. They read labels, they read the ingredients, and if you don’t know this easily the ingredients are mentioned in decreasing order of their presence in that product. So as pointed out by many if you are eating a famous chocolate brand in India, or many fruit-based soft drinks you are essentially drinking “sugar”, “regulators” and “emulsifiers” and some sort of “acids”. Similarly, most biscuits, bread, and bakery items are “refined wheat flour”, “some butter”, “some powders” etc.
I have seen folks outright rejecting products based on these contents now. These same people who are now parents choose wisely and smartly for themselves and their kids.
From the customer angle:
But the problem of discovery still remains? How do you identify which brand is right? which is speaking truth? how to chose one over another?
After all , anyone can go and read ingredients but then between ingredients and branding and mass production the market is a mess. How do I get what Iwant from a place Iwant? How do I trust it?
From the product angle:
How does the product should look like? What can the product makers do to appeal to the audience on this? How can it be simple and yet communicative enough and should appeal to this new audience.
Product Discussions
- Let’s take bread for example.
Bread is one of the most basic, most simple, and go-to staple options for many folks as a breakfast option. Almost all of us ate that classic white bread and jam as kids. But today no parent would give that white (* refined wheat flour) bread as refined wheat flour or “maida” is linked to tons of problems such as heart disease, type 2 diabetes, weight gain, BP, etc.
Next came brown bread. The ingredients of largely remained the same but in tier 2/3 towns of India, people started suggesting it as a healthier alternative. Only the color changed. Emulsifiers, preservatives, and the ingredient ratio remained the same.
Fast forward to today, there are multiple brands. one of which is “paushtaa” based out of Gurgaon, Haryana. The concept used is very simple. Unbranding. Letting go of too much on the packaging with simple caricature-based packaging and the ingredients just say “ Whole wheat flour, water, cold-pressed oil, seeds, rock salt, fermented wheat flour”. Apart from this, it has a small paragraph on healthy eating mentioning things such as
- No chemicals
- No Maida
- Natural fermentation in the case of sourdough
- created by mothers.
The product is telling you everything, it removes your fears of bad elements and there is all the information that is needed, nothing extra. No overdoing it.
The concept of “Less is More” is perfectly executed.
There is one downside to this it has a reduced shelf life than your classic breads. But that is not communicated explicitly. It's part of the mfg and expiry date data. So this becomes a localization play like your A2 Milk meaning I can simply re-create this product with a similar branding in Hyderabad, or Pune where there is an audience for such products and possible growth.
Here’s a small snippet on A2 milk- A2 milk and then subsequent A2 Ghee and similar products rose to limelight in last 2 years. Big milk brands and ghee brands came out with their version of A2 so as to quickly capture the tier2/tier3 town markets and not let go of their hold on those key markets. But if you go and study the reasoning behind A2 (Gir cow ) and Jersey Cow and the amount of milk they produce in one day , the logic questions the product that there is in the market. Modern players in metropolitan cities have came up with different app based subscription but no one is telling the source. If you join a subscription and are put on a wait list, the likely reason is closer to the source of truth as A2 cows milk production per day is way way less than Jersey cows. In this regards ask More. MORE is LESS.
2. The next Product I want to discuss is again Consumer Products Consumption- Grains, Pulses, flour, etc.
Earlier in India, grandparents used to go to local chakkis (flour mills) and get their grains ground in front of them. I have seen some people still use hand grinders in South India. But over time the productization and advertisement led to big players in Consumer products, capturing this market.
But the ingredients remained the same. One of the famous brands still has “maida” as a major ingredient in their classic 5kg/10kg wheat flour offerings.
So the modern consumer went backward but where are these “chakkis”? Well, there are now. Enter THE MILL.
Mill brought back the concept of grinding the wheat grain in front of your eyes and giving the customer the satisfaction of knowing what is going on in his/her stomach. I remember seeing the very first store a few years ago in Sec-56 market, Gurgaon, and thought to myself — “eh! Who would do the hassle”. Today I get all my flours including different flours, grains, and pulses all from a mill and I see the customer base is growing, and this customer base has a sparkle in their eyes and wants to know where the raw material is sourced from even after seeing everything in front of their eyes. And now people who trust this don't even wait. They just come and pick up the flour that was ground today and or get it delivered to their homes. But if you need it that be done in front of your eyes, the option is still there.
From the customer's perspective:
There is a satisfaction to see what flour gets ground in front of them so the fear of what mixture goes into the flour gets taken away. Meanwhile, the flour is getting ground, and they look around and pick up other things to try. They get the clean slate they are looking for and the trust factor.From the Product Perspective:
The mill has done one thing very smart. On their packaging which is a simple see-through plastic bag that has a velcro sort of closing. There is just one sticker saying the mill and a little bit of product information, again using the tactic “LESS IS MORE”. This intrigues people asking them for the source and they proudly tell it's all sourced from Madhya Pradesh farms and the quality is sharbati which grows in the sehore and vidisha regions of Madhya Pradesh. If you are someone who has a little bit of background you would relate quickly to the fact that wheat of MP is highly sought after now which earlier used to be for the wheat of Punjab.
The Mill upsells dry fruits, cold pressed oils (again a sought-after space), and many other things, apart from your regular grains. I have seen them selling Medjool dates again as premium things. Obviously, they are importing it but they are still selling it there packaging doing the famous “Unbranding is the new branding” which relates to the first picture I posted of a tote bag.
Unlike bread and milk, the shelf life here is not a concern and I feel the mill is a national play and not a local one.
The clean space eating is like a multi-bagger penny stock waiting to burst. The acquisitions were done by big players like ITC acquiring Yoga Bar, TCP advertising unpolished daals, or what the Whole Truth (a brand I like very much ) is doing shows that the healthy eating space given the right branding will be among the most sought-after ones.
