No longer an urban trend, premiumisation has reached Bharat

economictimes.indiatimes.com:

Premiumisation was originally a trend in metro and other urban areas where higher-priced products helped companies compensate for low volume growth. Aspirational buying, the spread of e-commerce and digital payments, and social media whetting consumer appetite have now taken demand for premium products to small towns too.Nestle India Chairman & MD Suresh Narayanan told ET recently that small-town India too is moving from single packs to multi-packs and from multi-packs to premium brands. «If I can go to Gopiganj and find KitKat being picked up by the consumer by name, that tells me that the premiumisation brand journey has also arrived in those towns,» he said.

This new premiumisation trend, Narayanan said, is happening across categories, whether it is prepared dishes, chocolates, confectionery, coffee, milks and nutrition, health science, pet care or cereals. «Wherever we are in, premiumisation is becoming an important element because consumers are wanting better quality, better value, better aspiration brands as far as their portfolio of consumption is concerned, that is one part. »We are surprised that some of our premium packs of coffee and chocolates are seeing a surge in demand from really small towns.

Distributors too are asking us for stocks. And such markets are serviceable now. Earlier, many of these markets had no roads," Narayanan had told ET last month.Nestle is not the only company witnessing this new trend.