Detailed Thread About Parle-G

In 1929, Parle Products started its business as a confectionery maker in Vile Parle, Mumbai. In 1939 Parle Products started making biscuits. After India became independent, the company started advertising its Gluco biscuit brand as an alternative to the British brand of biscuits.

Parle Gluco biscuits were renamed Parle-G after 1980. Here in Parle-G, the name G stands for Glucose but later they started calling it “G for Genius”. Because of sheer effort and a good marketing campaign, the company became the first FMCG to cross ₹5000 crores in retail sales.

Parle-G Success-

When Parle Products launched Parle-G in 1939 under British rule they came up to sell low-cost or affordable biscuits as an alternative to British brand biscuits. Because of this initiative, they were able to become India’s first FMCG company to cross ₹ 5000 crores in retail sales.

In 2012, Parle Product sold Rs 5000 crores of their glucose biscuit brand which was three times more than Maggi noodles. This means they sold more than 100 crores of biscuit packets which can also be like 1.2 billion Indians getting 12 biscuits each.

A thread of Parle-G

When Mohanlal Dayal was 18-year-old he started his tailoring shop in Mumbai, later his sons joined him in his business after that they together started researching the confectionery business. To get more knowledge about the technology of the confectionery business Mohanlal Dayal went to Germany to learn about the techniques used.

In 1928, Mohanlal Dayal founded the “House of Parle” which was located in Vile Parle, Mumbai. They named it after the suburb “Vile Parle” where it was located. In 1929 they formally established a factory and machinery. They initially started making toffees, peppermint, and sweets made up of sugar, milk, glucose, etc. Initially, they had 12 family members as employees handling various departments of manufacturing, packing, engineering, etc. One of the first products was “Parle Orange Bite” toffee.

At that time under British rule, biscuits were considered a premium product and consumed only by British people and upper-class people. Considering this problem, Parle Products came up with a new biscuit brand called “Parle Gluco” in 1938. Parle Gluco was launched to provide an affordable biscuit brand to Indian people as an alternative to the British brand. Which made the Parle biscuit brand a quick hit among people. It also became biscuits for the British-Indian army in World War 2.

In 1940, Parle Products came up with a new biscuit product called Monaco, which was India’s first salted cracker.

After the partition of 1947, Parle Products had to stop making Parle Gluco because of a shortage of their product’s main ingredient, wheat. For that particular time of shortage, they started making Barley biscuits. In the following years, many brands started entering the market with “glucose” and “gluco” in their brand name. Britannia also came up with a glucose biscuit brand called Glucose-D. To stand out in the market they changed the biscuit brand name from Parle Gluco to Parle G in the 1980s. They also changed the design of the package with white and yellow stripes with the Parle G girl. This is the design that Parle-G packets have today.

In 1982 Parle-G launched their first TV show dedicated to Parle-G on Doordarshan called “Swaad Bhare Shakti Bhare Parle-G”. In 1988 Parle Products also took the favorite superhero of that time “Shaktimaan” for commercial ads of Parle-G. Originally G in Parle-G’s name stands for Gluco but later in the 2000s, it was changed to Genius.

According to 2009-2010 data, the volume of Parle-G sales was bigger than the total sales of other brands in China. In 2011 according to a Nielsen report, it became the largest biscuit brand in the world. In 2013 Parle Products launched a campaign called “Kal Ke Genius”. In the same year, it became the largest biscuit selling brand with total sales of ₹ 5000 crores.

Parle-G today-

Recently in the covid-19 pandemic, the market share of the parent company of Parle-G went up by 5% and 80-90% of that growth belongs to Parle-G alone. In 2019 according to TRA’s Brand Trust Report India -Parle-G was ranked 29 in the Food and Beverage category.

Today Parle-G has about 130 factories and products are present in more than 5 million retail stores across India. Parle Products produces more than one Billion Parle-G packets in a single month. Parle-G is present even in rural areas where no other brand’s biscuits are available.

Future Growth of Parle-G-

The company is confident about Parle’s growth even after there is concern about maintaining India’s first 10000 crores FMCG brand because of the rising demand for cookies and cream biscuits available at similar prices as glucose biscuits. Though Parle Products is a 73-year-old brand there is a concern about staying relevant to the next generation of customers.

In the Parle Products list, Parle-G is not growing as fast as the total biscuit market. Parle-G sales have declined by 50% now. To stay connected to the next generation of people Parle Products started a campaign after 10 years called “Kal Ke Genius” the campaign made waves on social media.

Parle also launched premium biscuit Parle-G Gold to attract new generations. Parle-G Gold has a richer formulation than old Parle-G.

Conclusion-

Parle Products started business as a confectionery maker in 1929 and after getting freedom in 1947 they started advertising their glucose biscuit brand as an affordable biscuit and an alternative to British brands, which led them to become India’s first FMCG company to cross ₹ 5000 crores retail sales. This shows that Parle’s dedication and purpose for providing affordable biscuits for Indian people gave them huge initial success.

Parle was firm with its purpose of providing affordable biscuits and they haven’t strayed from that vision in 70 years. This helped them to become a household name. Even after competition from rivals like ITC and Britannia, Parle Products was firm with its pricing. Rival brand Britannia came up with the Britannia Tiger and targeted children. This became a threat for Parle-G at that time but they saved themselves by sponsoring children’s favorite TV show “Shaktimaan”.