Healthy Snacking: From Shelf Appeal to Purchase
How young Mumbai snackers see, taste and choose a premium rice-crisp brand, and what stands between noticing it and buying it.
SCROLLWhy aren't more of the right people buying it?
The brand has strong design, shelf presence and a product people enjoy. We went out to find what happens between someone noticing it and someone buying it.
What we set out to answer
- What does healthy snacking actually mean to these consumers?
- What wins at 4pm today, and why?
- What stops this brand from becoming an everyday snack?
- Does it deserve a place in a real snack basket?
Who we spoke to
- 👩🏽💻Young professionals aged 22 to 30, mostly women, all actively trying to eat healthier
- 🥗A certified sports nutritionist
- 🏪Shopkeepers and staff at kiranas, grocery stores and pharmacies
- 🌊Passers-by on the promenade
How we found out
Hover to pause. Every method was run in person, in Mumbai.
Your packaging wins the eye. It isn't winning the sale.
On the shelf, the brand was the clear favourite: the most premium-looking and most tasty-looking product on the table, chosen before anyone read a word. Many people had already seen it in stores and on quick-commerce apps, but most had never bought it.
Two things are getting in the way:
- The pack looks expensive before anyone checks the price, so people assume it's out of reach and move on.
- The name isn't sticking. One woman held the packet for ten minutes. She had seen it in stores and thought about buying it more than once, but didn't know what it was called until we told her.
I didn't even read the name of the brand. I only realised when you told me.
I love the packaging and the colours and the font and everything.
It looks imported.
Taste beats every expectation. Then the rice guilt kicks in.
Nobody walked in excited about it. Then they tasted it. Ratings jumped, and people kept reaching for more, unprompted, for the rest of the interview.
Then came the doubt: rice doesn't feel healthy. Nobody checked the nutrition panel or read the ingredients, and that one word undid what the taste had just won.
You know what. It is actually really good.
It does taste better than makhana.
I would finish the whole packet.
I doubt it is healthy. Because rice does not feel very healthy.
It's positioned as an import. It's eaten like a desi snack.
One woman loved it and could picture having it with chai every day. Then she stopped herself: she wasn't going to have international rice crisps with her chai.
To most people it tasted familiar, like seasoned murmura, the kind of thing they already reach for at 4pm. But the name and pack present it as a fancy foreign import, a weekend treat rather than an everyday habit.
The room leaned heavily Indian.
A fancy import
What the name and pack signal before anyone tastes it.
A desi 4pm staple
What people actually compared it to once they tasted it.
I am not trying to have [international rice crisps] with my chai. Everyone has chai at 4pm. What we have is nimki, suhaali. This is that. But I would never think of it that way.
This is murmura but with some seasoning. That is it. But they have made it look so fancy.
If it was in a dabba and I could see what is inside, then I would take it home and keep it for 4pm.
The price is a weapon nobody knows about.
More people called it the most overpriced product on the table than said so of anything else. Their guesses were more than double the real price. When we told them the real price, people were genuinely surprised, and several said they would buy it at that price.
The premium look plants a price in people's heads before they check the real one, so they walk past assuming it isn't for them.
What, is the zero missing?
Below ₹100 I would buy this for chai time easily. But I would never pick it up thinking it costs that little.
I thought it would be imported. At that price I would absolutely buy it.
Nobody owns this category yet.
We asked everyone to name a healthy snack brand they love and keep buying. The room went quiet. A couple of names came up, without conviction, and nobody said "I always buy that." Most said they'd rather try a new healthy brand than a legacy brand going healthy.
The brand has already won on packaging and taste. The price works, and the product beats the makhana people eat out of habit rather than love.
The store signalled health and quality before she read a word.
She picked it up because it looked clean and premium.
Taste is what keeps people coming back.
Makhana is just not fun.
I have seen it in stores. On Zepto too. I have thought about buying it. I just always go with my usual makhana.
New healthy brand over a familiar brand going healthy? New healthy brand. Every time.
Taste, then packaging, then quality. That is it. I do not care about the brand.
Six changes that can close the gap.
People who try the product like it. These changes are about getting more of the right people to that point, and keeping them.
People think it costs more than double what it does, and that is costing sales. Make the price easy to see on the shelf and on quick commerce.
Taste wins people over, but the doubt about rice follows within seconds. A clear health story on the pack stops that from happening.
The biggest opportunity is a familiar Indian moment: the 4pm chai break. That is where people already pictured eating it.
People notice the pack but forget the brand. Tie the name to the product at every touchpoint.
Taste is what gets people to try it and buy it again. Health credentials remove the doubt, so the two should sit together in every message.
No healthy snack brand has loyalty yet, so there's still room to become the everyday choice.