McCain French Fries promotes itself as alternative to restaurant delivery

In an influencer post on Instagram, Akshar Pathak lists down the benefits of making it at home, versus ordering in.

A recent influencer post by Akshar Pathak, a social media influencer and a former Zomato employee, promotes McCain French Fries as an alternative to ordering it from restaurants. With this, the snack company is projecting itself as a competitor to ordering in.

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A post shared by Akshar Pathak (@aksharpathak)

During the COVID-induced lockdown, when the government-issued guidelines kept the restaurants shut, in-home consumption had soared. People were cooking all kinds of food at home, even those items that they generally consumed only in restaurants. This gave a boost to the frozen food category, as it provided a much-needed convenience. However, with people now going back to ordering from restaurants, this post may be a reminder of how good the fries turned out when made at home.

The post highlights why making fries at home is a great idea. Among the reasons mentioned is that delivered fries are like ‘aloo ka halwa’ by the time they reach home, referring to the fact that fries become soggy once cold. It also mentions lesser waiting period and money as the benefits.

The post also involves a contest, where Pathak asks his followers to share their own special fries recipes to win Amazon vouchers worth Rs 3,000.

The snacking category in India is becoming bigger by the day. Brands, across categories, are launching snacking options for the consumers. Recently, Revital forayed into the healthy snacking category, with the launch of Revital Nutrition Bars. Parle Products also introduced three new ‘namkeen’ flavours, under its ‘Chatkeens’ brand, for the upcoming festive season.

Prior to the pandemic, snacking usually took place in between major meals. However with work-from-home (WFH) and online schooling changing people’s routine, they are now consuming more snacks. In a recent interview to afaqs!, Krishnarao Buddha, senior category head, Parle Products, also affirmed that the pandemic has triggered a lot of snacking.

Many of these brands also offer a consumption window for their consumers. For example, Sunfeast Dark Fantasy’s recent ad, featuring actress Alia Bhatt, positions it as an end of the day snack. Maggi also pitched itself as the WFH era afternoon snack. McCain Foods India also did this with its ‘Snack-O-Clock’ campaign, where it suggested snacking between Zoom meetings and classes, while taking a break from work and binging on OTT content, etc.