FMCG companies and food services chains head to Ayodhya

FMCG companies and food services chains are making a beeline for Ayodhya ahead of the Ram temple consecration on January 22, which they said is expected to lead to 8-10-fold surge in tourism and floating (visiting) population of the city amid its global branding and facelift. "Anticipating substantial surge in consumer demand following the consecration of the Ram temple, we are strategically setting up a greenfield plant in Ayodhya," said Angelo George, CEO of India's largest mineral water company Bisleri International. He said the plant will feed in to demand from surrounding markets in Uttar Pradesh.

Though so far, a small market within UP with a population of about 350,000, Ayodhya is now a pilgrim hotspot because of the Ram temple, making for a large captive market which companies are leveraging, executives said.

"FMCG companies are ramping up distribution in the city anticipating demand surge of daily essentials, since Ayodhya is coming up as the biggest tourism centre of New India," said Dhairyashil Patil, national president of the All India Consumer Products Distributors Federation. He estimated that the floating (visiting) population of Ayodhya could go up 8 to 10X times, leading to higher demand for packaged water, soft drinks, snacking products, and other grocery products.

Places of historical prominence attract demand by default, executives say. Data by the UP Tourism Department shows that while 325,000 tourists visited Ayodhya in 2021, the number surged to 23.9 million the following year.

"The renovated Kashi Vishwanath corridor in Varanasi had led to significant surge in demand for us; Ayodhya is much bigger, so we are increasing distribution centres in Ayodhya, despite us already being strong in UP," said Mayank Shah, senior category head at Parle Products, which makes Monaco and Fab biscuits brands.

Food services chains too are leveraging the captive demand.

Sanjeev Agrawal, chairman of McDonald's India, north and east, said: "We are setting up a new outlet on the Lucknow-Ayodhya highway to cater to the anticipated surge in tourists."

According to Kabir Jeet Singh, co-founder of LetsVenture-backed Burger Singh, which started its outlet in Civil Lines in Ayodhya near the Ram mandir complex nine months back to capture first-mover advantage in the city, Ayodhya is now one of his top 10 performing outlets.

An executive at a leading food services consultancy said, while some chains are setting up vegetarian-only outlets in Ayodhya to cater to religious sentiments, others who don't want to discontinue serving non-veg cuisine to cater to diverse and international tourists, are setting up outlets on the immediate outskirts of the city to capitalise on demand from travellers.

The Ram Janmabhoomi temple in Ayodhya has led to the city getting a redeveloped railway station, which includes food plazas, a new airport, development projects with investments of over ₹15,700 crore and over a dozen new hotels projects. Ram Mandir construction committee chairperson Nripendra Mishra told news agency PTI late last year that the current population of Ayodhya of 350,000 could surge by 500,000 with tourists and people who could migrate to the city after surge in economic activity following the inauguration of the temple.