Bagrry's enters the impulse category with muesli bars

Director, Aditya Bagri talks about the breakfast cereal brand's recent launch, the healthy bars category in India and more.

Bagrry’s, a breakfast cereals and health food brand known for its products like oats and corn flakes, recently launched ‘Mighty Muesli Bars’. The brand was one of the first ones to introduce granola bars in the Indian market in 1998 and, with the latest launch, has re-entered the cereal bars space.

Speaking to afaqs! about this foray, Aditya Bagri, director at Bagrry’s, says the brand is looking at categories that are future-first, and driven by consumer desires and choices. As per him, the brand was the first mover in many categories, including oats, muesli and bars.

“The consumer insights for this launch, involve the health seeking behaviour of millennials, the need for on-the-go healthy, wholesome snacks, and introducing a healthier alternative to biscuits. In the breakfast cereals business globally, more consumption is happening out of home. The bars segment is close to Baggry’s breakfast cereal category,” he explains.

The reason behind the launch, as per the brand, is because the category has reached some amount of critical mass in the minds of Indian consumers.

Bagri points out, “Muesli has proven health benefits. Hence, we wanted to call it a muesli bar, rather than a granola or nutrition bar. These bars emulate the taste and the crunch of our signature muesli recipes.”

Priced at Rs 40, these bars come in three flavours - Choco Nut Delight, Signature Crunch and Fruits, and Nuts & Seeds. They are available on leading e-commerce sites as well a 5,000-plus retail stores across all major cities like Delhi NCR, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Pune, Chennai and Kolkata.

Prior to the launch, Bagrry’s sampled the bars at prominent points of sale like partnering with q-commerce platforms in order to reach the consumers as fast as possible. The brand also had institutional tie-ups to launch the bars in key retail touch points.

Bagri states that globally, this category enjoys a much bigger share than it does in India. “This is because in India, there are several alternatives, like traditional snack options, biscuits, etc. So, while the intent is to be a key player in the bars category, the key target audience for the new muesli bars is SEC A-plus consumers, who’re looking for a healthy, on the go snack, where both health and convenience are important to satiate hunger.”

The bars are also for those individuals who are already consumers of muesli, as this gives them the added benefit of out of home consumption.
According to Bagri, with the launch of muesli bars, the brand is entering the impulse products category.

Speaking about the competition in the category, especially from the new-age D2C players, Bagri mentions that this category is still at a very early stage. While there are a bunch of players which have globally held good shares in the bar category, in India, it’s still relatively a new category. 

“Collective effort by all the brands is very important to get the consumers to switch to bars. The biggest challenge is that very few Indian consumers choose bars in the first place. All the brands first need to build the category of healthy bars and not pay too much attention to the competitive side,” Bagri says.