As restrictions lift across the world, people are beginning to safely step out and head to their favourite restaurants. But three years of Covid have tremendously changed the way people cook and eat. It’s safe to say that today, cooking has emerged as an integral life skill. Triggered by the extended pandemic stay-at-home period and popular short format content, people have increasingly begun experimenting in kitchens and building their culinary skills. From Dalgona coffee and banana bread to mug cakes, there has been a steady rise in cooking interest across the country. Flipkart, India’s homegrown e-commerce marketplace shares some interesting trends observed in the segment in the past year.
As people across the country continue to creatively tread on their culinary journey, Flipkart’s cookware category has witnessed a 30% Y-o-Y growth. The boom in at-home-cooking has resulted in a consequent rise in demand for single unit utensils, such as 1 litre pressure cookers, clocking a 43% growth. Other kitchen items such as steel glasses, flasks and casseroles have also witnessed an uptick in demand. As customers become increasingly conscious about cookware materials and brands, an interesting shift from non-PFA materials to cast iron, glass and stainless steel was also recorded. Cast iron skillets alone saw a 30% increase in demand. With sustainability emerging as the fastest-growing trend in this category, brands across the board are steadily ramping up new products in healthy cookware options that are natural, regenerated and recyclable.
There has also been a spike in brand and material specific keyword searches such as ‘Prestige’ gas stove, ‘Hawkins’ pressure cooker, ‘Milton’ flask, ‘Tupperware’ bottle, ‘Laopala’ dinner set, ‘stainless steel’ kadhai, and ‘cast iron’ tawa. Shoppers today are showing an increasing affinity towards premium cookware, considering that the category saw a 2X spike- with hob top stoves and Opalware branded dinner sets topping the charts. Flipkart features an expansive product range of over 50,000+ in the stainless steel, cast iron, ceramic, glass and titanium kitchen and cookware section.
Exploring new trends and styles in the world of cookware requires careful research, and customers have embraced online shopping to unprecedented levels in this regard. Brands such as Prestige, Butterfly, Pigeon, Hawkins, Milton, Cello, Greenchef, Faber and Laopala have emerged as the most popular among customers of Flipkart today. Among millennials, there have been various trends observed in terms of personality led purchase choices. This audience also prefers tech enabled and specialised cookware such as smart bottles, Dutch ovens and appam makers.
As healthy cooking has become a way of life for most, especially since the Covid-19 onslaught, cookware continues to remain a focus area for the majority of consumers. The industry is poised for tremendous growth in the coming months, and Flipkart is wholly committed to bringing in the widest range from some of the best brands, for its rapidly growing customer-base.
