The Impatient Consumer, iOT And The Food Of Everything
Progressive Grocer|September 2019
There is more to foods than meets the eye. There is technology. There is the consumer who is forever morphing. And there is the future. Let’s peep into it.
Harish Bijoor
The Impatient Consumer, iOT And The Food Of Everything

Is India the Most Exciting Food Market in the World Really? Must be. The diversity of food we still eat, and the lack of a clonal habit in food and beverage intake is a hall-mark reality of India. Literally no two families eat the same. The country is diverse in other ways as well. The country, which hitherto was all abut a home-kitchen oriented market, is eating out more than ever. Add to it the fact that we eat not only with our mouth but with our eyes and ears as well. With food television becoming a big thing, the food market is an exciting one to be in. A market that will possibly define some of the future trends in food and beverage for the world to watch, use and see.

In this article, I am going to explore two different aspects that are defining food, beverage, its intake and the trends that will shape India later. One is a technology trend that will re-define it all, and the other is a consumer watch trend that goes with the way the new consumer in India is behaving. Let me lead with technology and move on to the consumer in the latter half.

The Internet of Things

The big technology trend I am excited of at this point in time is the Internet of Things (iOT). All of us have heard of it by now. The era of the iOT or the Internet Of Things is here. Some marketing and technology evangelists have dubbed it an era of the iOE or the Internet Of Everything. An era where the Internet as we know it becomes incidental. So incidental that we even forget the way the Internet of today exists and we start co-living with the Internet as if it did not exist at all. An Internet era where everything is literally governed by the Internet and an era where you do not go to the Internet but the Internet comes to you. And eventually, an era where the Internet is a part of you and you are a part of the Internet at large. A point of time when you will not know where you end and where the ubiquitous Internet begins even.

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