Brands
PepsiCo puts ‘no artificial flavours or colours’ label on its Indian snack range
The American food giant is betting that ingredient transparency will win over increasingly health-conscious consumers
GURUGRAM: PepsiCo is slapping a “No Artificial Flavours or Colours” label across its entire Indian foods portfolio, Lay’s, Kurkure and Doritos included, in a bid to ride the growing wave of consumer demand for cleaner labels. No recipes have changed; only the packaging has, to tell shoppers what was already true.
The move is less a product overhaul than a marketing reckoning. As Indians grow warier of what goes into their packaged snacks, the company is betting that visibility, not just virtue, is what builds trust at the shelf. “Transparency is not just claimed, but made visible and easy to understand,” said Saakshi Verma Menon, chief marketing officer of PepsiCo India.
The timing is deliberate. Earlier this month, PepsiCo announced an investment of up to Rs 5,700 crore in India by 2030, singling out the country as one of its top 13 markets globally. The bulk of that capital is earmarked for expanding manufacturing capacity in its foods business, a signal that the company sees India not merely as a growth market, but as a strategic one.
The label refresh is, in effect, PepsiCo’s answer to a quieter but powerful shift in Indian consumer behaviour: people are reading the back of the packet. Brands that fail to lead with that conversation risk being left behind by those that do.
