The Indian noodles pasta and soup market in India covers three categories of ready-to-cook foods, namely, instant noodles, instant pasta and instant soup. With the rapid change of lifestyle in the last couple of decades, ready-to-cook and instant food brands have become almost indispensable in urban kitchens, as easy to cook foods are time savers in addition to be easy on the palate, and also because they are highly prised by children.
According to India Instant Macaroni, Pasta & Soup Market Overview, the total market for instant noodles, pasta and soup is growing at over 20% CAGR for the past five years. The instant noodles market in India was growing at a healthy pace in recent years, but MSG Maggi's controversial lead hit the category mostly with sales declining by almost 14% in 2015-16. As a result, other players like CG Foods and ITC Sunfeast Yippee are trying to grab a greater share of the category.
Instant noodle market in India is divided into two segments according to the style of packaging viz. noodles / bag and cup / noodle bowl. Flexible plastic packages of pack noodles dominate the market, as consumers prefer convenient packaging with affordable quantities. However, cup noodles will prove to be a fashionable friend of the young multi-tasking generation in the coming years. More than two-thirds of instant noodle sales revenue comes from traditional formats (kirana stores), while retailing is growing rapidly and online sales are still at a nascent stage. The ready-to-cook pasta market in India is in the kind of stage that the instant noodle market was years ago.