Job cuts, food inflation, reduced welfare payments and slashed subsidies are driving shoppers to rethink what they buy and how. Growing numbers are opting for smaller packs and bottles, strict budgets and discount stores.
This in turn is forcing manufacturers to consider afresh the way they make, package and distribute their fast-moving consumer goods – from biscuits, noodles and fizzy drinks to face creams – a sector reckoned to swallow one-fifth of global consumer spending. With business models based on selling to a solid middle class, many are straying into new territory, introducing low-cost products – small pack sizes commonly associated with poorer countries, for example – alongside higher-end, high-margin goods that were once the preserve of their specialist peers.
