Breakfast on wheels: Nestle India gears up for healthy breakfast truck project
Lauded as ‘the first of its kind’, the truck will offer various products from within the Nestle India portfolio, including Nescafe, Maggi Noodles, Milo and its newly launched Maggi Dips and Spreads, which entered the market just last month.
The truck will travel around the Delhi region between 9am and 7pm daily.
“With the launch of Nestlé India’s ‘All Day Breakfast’ truck, we will be able to offer nutritious and delicious breakfast choices to our customers in Delhi NCR on-the-go,” said Suresh Narayanan, Chairman and Managing Director, Nestlé India.
“The truck is in line with our strategy of putting forward new concepts and offer good food for people on the move.”
However, the company is remaining relatively secretive about the operations and future plans for this pilot project, telling us that: “We won’t be able to share further information on the initiative.”
Third new ‘healthy/nutritious’ launch within four months
Nestle India looks to be placing a lot of focus on new product and concept development, given that this is the company’s third new launch within the last four months.
A common running theme within these launches has been its emphasis on ‘healthy’ or ‘nutritious’ options.
In July this year, Nestle India launched Nesplus, a breakfast cereal range combining wholegrains and multigrains fortified with vitamin D, calcium, B-Vitamins, iron, folic acid and fibre.
“Nesplus breakfast cereals aim to offer an array of healthy breakfast choices for Indian families,” said the official press release.
Closely following that was the Maggi Dips and Spreads launch in September 2019, where it was emphasised in the release that the product ‘contains almost 80% yogurt with less than 3% fat making it a very healthy and tasty option for variety of food pairings’.
The All Day Breakfast truck also had an emphasis on health and nutrition, with Nestle India stressing that the intention was to ‘providing Indian consumers with healthy and tasty all-day breakfast options.’
Heavy competition
It is not surprising that Nestle India is attempting to up its game in the breakfast arena, given the stiff competition it is facing within the country.
For one, Hindustan Unilever (HUL) has plans to launch a range of breakfast options that are even more localised and native to South Asia, including delights such as upma, khichdi and pongal.
These will be launched under the brand name Ayush, HUL’s Ayurveda brand.
Geetu Verma, HUL Executive Director - Foods said: “With our brand vision of traditional ingredients being made contemporary, we will be able to democratise the benefits of ayurveda inspired recipes to the Indian consumer and do our part in making India healthy.”
PepsiCo has also launched ready-to-cook packaged breakfast items with a very local focus (e.g. dosa, idli, upma) under Quaker Nutri Foods.