Covid impact: As nature unleashed its wrath, natural products topped the charts

Sales of naturals products across personal care categories have grown at nearly twice the rate of regular consumables during the year ended June, as the spread of Covid-19 led to an increased consumer interest, awareness and demand for ayurvedic brands.

For instance, natural shampoo expanded 15% compared to 7% growth in the regular hair care segment, according to the latest report by Kantar. Similarly, natural skin creams grew 30%, while the overall category grew 12%. And in toothpaste, growth in natural at 16% was higher than the overall category which grew 10%.

"The pandemic did put natural products back onto the map. We see that natural brands grew faster than the category itself post the pandemic," said K Ramakrishnan, MD, South Asia, Kantar Worldpanel Division.

In the overall fast-moving consumer goods, toothpaste was one of the first segment that saw increased competition in the naturals space, especially after the entry of Patanjali. Yet, natural toothpaste, which has been outpacing regular ones for almost five years, has grown significantly higher last year despite a large base.

“In the oral care market, consumers are increasingly preferring herbals, naturals and ayurvedic offerings and this growth picked up pace during the covid year. As a result, this segment has been growing at a much faster pace," said Dabur chief executive officer Mohit Malhotra, adding that it is now expanding its toothpaste portfolio with the launch of Dabur Herbal range of alpha ingredient toothpastes, besides entering the mouthwash category.

However, the fastest growth was in baby categories with natural hair wash, talcum and skin creams now accounting for more than half the overall category after growing between 26-46%. Within personal care, the only aberration was bar soaps, where growth was mainly driven by hygiene brands - Dettol and Lifebuoy - which are not natural.

As a result, natural soaps grew 5%, half compared to the category that expanded 10%.

Over the past few years, Hindustan Unilever relaunched Ayush, acquired the Indulekha haircare brand, and launched the Citra skincare brand to spruce up its presence in the naturals space.