Mondelez India, the maker of Cadbury Dairy Milk chocolates, plans to enter the Rs 35,000-crore per annum salty snacks market in the country led by Haldiram’s and PepsiCo.

This is part of a strategy to expand non-chocolate segments and target the country’s growing appetite for ready-to-eat products, especially after consumers increasingly spend more time in their homes due to the pandemic, said Deepak Iyer, president – India at Mondelez International.

The company has piloted Trisbix, a flavoured cracker in Delhi, making it its first savoury launch in the country.

“Our ambition is to be a snacking company,” Iyer told ET. “If you want to become a snacking company, every aspect of or any subcategory of snacking in space is on the table as an effective option. We will decide when and how to launch.”

Globally, Mondelez gets about 70% of its sales from non-chocolate portfolio such as biscuits, gums, candies and beverages while in India chocolates account for a bulk of its sales. In India, the company entered several categories including cakes and breakfast cereals since last year.

While there was a major economic toll due to the pandemic, consumer spending has significantly surged during the festive season.

Mondelez said Diwali was one of its best festive seasons in many years as consumer sentiments were good due to higher vaccination rates, pent-up demand, and greater mobility, which helped people socialise.

“However, there are a couple of concerns still in the back of people’s minds,” Iyer said. “One is the inflationary pressures everybody’s seen, and whether there will be a Covid wave three. So the pandemic is not completely behind us.”

India has one of Mondelez’s two global research and development hubs. It focuses on developing technology platforms for chocolates and beverages, consumer science, innovation, packaging, and cross-category productivity. Apart from products, the parent company is also taking to other markets the route-to-market strategy from the country, a market where it has been adding over 80,000 retail outlets each year.

Two months ago, Mondelez put ‘Cocoa Life’ logo on all its chocolate packs to convey sustainable cocoa sourcing. Few years ago, it extended its flagship brand Cadbury Dairy Milk with a variant containing 30% less sugar than the original bar. More recently, it launched energy bars.

However, the company maintained that it will not intertwine indulgence and health platforms for its future product launches.

“We are not going to convert indulgent products,” Iyer said. “We will launch new products. There will be occasions where consumers will want to indulge and occasions when they will want to move to a better-for-you option.”

Mondelez’s sales in India crossed $1 billion last year and has consistently grown double digits over the past few quarters. The country is the third-biggest market for Oreo biscuits after the US and China and the market share of Cadbury Dairy Milk in India is the highest for the US snacking giant.

Nestle, Ferrero and Mars (maker of Snickers and Wrigley) have been expanding their portfolios and retail networks over the past two years.

Mondelez, however, said it has either gained or retained its market share since a decade now and continues to control two-thirds of the country’s Rs 12,000-crore chocolates market.

Consumption trends driving growth for Mondelez in India include more people consuming premium chocolates, even in rural India. “Given that rural India has witnessed huge tailwinds, Mondelez India has expanded its reach to almost one lakh villages,” said Deepak Iyer, president – Mondelez International (India)…