Battered by inflation and faltering demand, India's consumer goods industry is ailing https://www.businesstoday.in/magazine/deep-dive/story/battered-by-inflation-and-faltering-demand-indias-consumer-goods-industry-is-ailing-399174-2023-09-21
“Discretionary spending was cut as most households were under pressure because their overall purchasing power was down drastically. We were expecting [to] be out of the inflationary cycle and that consumer spending [would make a comeback] in 2023. But that has not happened. The inflationary trend continues, and the mass segment has not really come back. Therefore, we have witnessed a [contraction] in mass market categories in the last six months,” - Steep inflation and faltering demand have hit consumer goods makers hard in the past three years. There seems to be little respite as a fresh inflation surge and uneven spread of the monsoon could disrupt the firms' recovery- Kamal Nandi, the Business Head and Executive Vice President of Godrej Appliances
"As prices of raw materials like palm oil, skimmed milk powder, and crude oil rose by 50–120 per cent between December 2020 and December 2022, manufacturers had no option but to hike the prices of packaged goods. And volumes faltered as most low-to-middle-income households baulked at the idea of increasing their expenditure. - Sanjiv Mehta, former CEO and MD of consumer goods major Hindustan Unilever