Healthy food at unbeatable prices can bridge the hunger divide

India is a land of contradictions. High-rises touching the sky stand next to sprawling slums. Some of the most luxurious cars in the world drive on pot-holed roads. A few of our brightest go on to the world stage in their chosen field of study while many continue to struggle to read and write.

These are well known clichés immortalised by movies – both Hollywood and Bollywood. The one dichotomy that doesn’t get talked about often is our nutritional divide – which is a story of excesses and deficits co-existing together when it comes to different required nutrients.

At a national level, the average calorie intake of an Indian is about 20% below the Recommended Dieteary Allowance (RDA) while the average fat intake is almost 1.5 times the RDA in rural India and about 2.5 times the RDA in urban India. One could argue that national averages can be misleading in a country with a large population below the poverty line. But what is interesting is that in a recent study of the nutrition intake of a sample of urban Indians middle-class and affluent Indians, BCG found wide variations across nutrients for the same set of individuals. 

What is healthy?
What explains this dichotomy for a set of people who can afford nutritious food? How do Indians think about health? In fact, do they even think about it? It would seem they do. A recent study conducted by BCG found that desire to stay healthy is not lacking. Some 70% of the respondents claimed to be adopting a ‘healthy activity’. The high incidence of ‘lifestyle’ diseases like diabetes and cardio-vascular diseases have only heightened this awareness and desire.

The research further showed that of those who claimed to be doing something healthy, a vast majority cited ‘eating healthy’ as their primary way of staying healthy. 

What makes this approach challenging is that knowledge of what is healthy vs what is not is partial and often incorrect. I recall interviewing a lower middle-class family in East Delhi comprising an owner of an electric store, his wife and their son aged 14. The mother appeared somewhat anxious about her son’s weight and believed that feeding him fried items (fried potato being top of the list!) would solve the problem. In another instance, an affluent mother of two in Ahmedabad believed that she could compensate her children skipping a meal or not eating green vegetables as long as they had their two glasses of milk every day.

On the occasions when the knowledge is largely right, discipline comes in the way. In the trade-off between taste and health, taste has higher chances of success in a country that celebrates good food in every way possible.

Health is wealth
All this suggests a huge opportunity for consumer products and services companies . This could come in the form of a) creating the right offerings to meet the nutritional requirements, b) educating consumers by providing the right information and dispelling myths, and c) encouraging discipline through innovative services – both online and offline.

This is, of course, easier said than done. Good health often does not come cheap and delivering it at the right price point requires not just technological but business innovations. It is important to remember that health can certainly be wealth. Both for individuals in question as well as corporations serving them. What is required is a deep understanding of the consumer and innovations across the value chain to create a compelling offer and economically viable model.

The writer is Partner and Director, BCG.