COVID-19 impact: Amway India gears up to meet increased demand for immunity, nutrition products

With increased demand for immunity and nutrition products during the coronavirus lockdown, direct selling major Amway is gearing up for enhanced focus on the category and expecting up to 65 percent of its total business to come from it going forward, a top company official said.

The company, which is taking a look at its "portfolio in a big way" in India as part of planned global investments, is studying how to readjust the portfolio more towards immunity and nutrition here in the country.

Amway India also expects its business to come back to at least 80-90 percent of pre-lockdown levels by July.

During the lockdown, a consumer trend has been observed with demand moving towards immunity and nutrition products, Amway India CEO Anshu Budhraja told PTI.

"People are more attuned to consuming for their own self-care...During the lockdown the classic case is that people did not want to go to hospital, otherwise people earlier wanted to go to doctors for true curative (treatment). People have now moved to preventive and they see see value in preventive," he said.

Therefore, he said, "the need for supplementation is leading to the heightened awareness for stronger immunity. I think that is one big mega trend which we see. We have coined the term 'What's IN' and IN stands for immunity and nutrition."

Budhraja further said the emerging consumer trend is also "helping our ayurveda line" in which the company has six stock keeping units (SKUs) out of which tulsi-based supplement saw a huge demand.

Asked if the company would ramp up production of such immunity and nutrition products, he said, "Good companies always follow consumer demands and consumer needs. If consumer demands and needs towards immunity supporting range goes up, obviously we will support that."

Predicting that this market will grow over a period of time, he said, "It will grow more than the market in beauty (category) in the mid-term at least. We do see a mix change in our portfolio where immunity and nutrition will move up to almost 60-65 percent of the total business as compared to almost 56 percent at present."

He further said,"We envisage that these categories will grow at a much faster pace because consumer is evolving and naturally inclined to migrate into those segment."

Reiterating the company's focus on the segment as part of planned global investments, Budhraja said, "We are looking at portfolio in a big way, how we can readjust our portfolio more towards immunity and nutrition. We are looking at multiple things around that."

Commenting on business resmuption after the lockdown, Budhraja said after being immediately impacted, operations of the company are scaling back gradually to achieve business continuity.

The company's plant in Tamil Nadu has already been producing immunity and nutrition products which were included in essential items category, although beauty and home durable products were impacted.

Out of 140 shops that Amway has in India, 90 percent are open and a similar percentage of warehouses have also started functioning following government guidelines. Offices are also back with 33 percent of employees, he added.

"We have achieved business continuity in 60 days. After 90 days we will try and see how fast we can come back. By July I do expect us to come back to at least 80-90 percent of where we were in pre-lockdown,"he said.