Changing Perception of Indian Rural Consumers towards Packaged Food Products: A Literature Review

The packaged food and beverage sector has observed the fastest growth in fast moving consumer goods market. Several studies have shown that rural consumers are generally ignorant and they are also unorganized.Rural markets are full of inferior goods and duplicity of branded goods is another major problem in rural areas. These facts may not be true any longer. The rural market has changed drastically in the past decade. There is a change in the income pattern and lifestyle of rural people. Very few companies were concentrating in these markets. The Introduction of currency, transport, and communication and developments in infrastructure has increased the scope of rural market. Seeing the potential of 75 per cent Indians living in rural areas and demand base offers great opportunities to marketers, they started focusing on these unexplored, high- potential areas. This paper is focus on analyzing the awareness of rural consumers towards packed food products and the changing rural consumer preference towards packed food products in rural areas of Nagpur district. This study is based on a secondary data collected from the various research manuscripts available online and offline in article published, books and magazines. Keywords:Perception, Packed food, Rural, Consumeretc