On quick commerce apps, it is common for users to reach out to the inbuilt mobile phone calculator to compare and standardise the prices of edible oils, ghee, etc.
At a retail store, be it a kirana or a self-service supermarket, is almost impossible for a Indian middle class consumer to convert the price of edible oil from Grams to Kilogram or part there of.
Epecially when the pricing looks the same more or less, but the pack sizes are different.
Sudhakar Desai, President of Indian Vegetable Oils Association said, “This move will restore structural sanity to retail shelves and level the playing field”.
The Indian Union Government has released Standard Operating Procedure (SoP) of pack sizes for edible oils.
The new rules shall govern that pack sizes must display litres of millilitres of volume and the equivalent weight on the product’s packaging.
To ensure transparency for consumers, the government has advised only 6 pack sizes to be manufactured henceforth – 200 gms / litres, 500 gms or litres, 1 / 2 / 3/ 4 / 5 / 15 and 20 litres of kgs.
Manufacturers will have 3 months time to change the packaging, said the official release by the government.
Editor’s Note
Finally, the Government has heard the prayers of consumers and retailers at large, by bringing standardisation of pack sizes.
India is one of the largest consumes of edible oil in the world, with 27 – 29 million tonnes of edible oil used every year by Indian households.
According to data from NITI Aayog and the Ministry of Consumer Affairs, the average Indian now consumes roughly 19 to 20 kg of cooking oil per year, nearly double over the last two decades, up from around 8–9 kg in the early 2000s.
Similar standardisation in pack sizes must be brought in by the Government in all food and non-food items, from biscuits to snacks, floor cleaners and soaps and so on.
While some may view these measures as over reach, such standardisation will bring in greater transparency to consumers while deciding a brand of their choice.
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