How Ready-To-Eat food packs became essential for Indians travelling abroad
Ready-To-Eat food items have become a travel essential now. Photo: DailyO
When you are travelling abroad for a holiday, a business trip or to even study, I bet you prefer to keep those Haldiram's, MTR or Kitchens of India Ready-To-Eat food packets with you. These packets save you in times of emergency; especially if you don't have anything else to eat or wouldn't want an exorbitant meal, or maybe if you are just missing Indian food.
- Food companies such as Haldiram's, MTR, Kitchens of India and brands like these have kickstarted the RTE packed food travel trend with hassle-free, budgeted, long shelf-life home-food on-the-go.
- Ready-To-Eat has indeed made travelling easy. And these ready-to-eat food packets go beyond serving traditional Indian dishes.
Before our handy ready-to-eat packs, there was the OG: Nissin Cup Noodles.
Cup noodles have been the ultimate definition of hassle-free, economical food option anywhere you go around the world; and there are various brands to choose from now, but it all started with Momofuko Ando's trip to the US.
What: In 1971, Momofuku Ando, the creator of ramen, invented Cup Noodles, the world's first ramen served in a cup. The idea of cup noodles came to Ando on a trip to the US, when he saw local supermarket managers breaking the ramen, putting them in a cup and pouring hot water over them.
The journey from cup noodles to ready-to-eat upma, poha, kadhi-chawal, what not, has taken about three decades. Today, no Indian who travels abroad can perhaps think of a trip without packets of their favourite ready-to-eat food.
A blessing for Indians
- A great option for vegetarians: RTE food packets are a great option for Indians travelling to Southeast Asian countries or Scandinavian countries (or any other off-beat location) where vegetarian options (to the liking of the Indian palette) are limited or barely there, or they crave Indian food and cannot find it easily.
- Easy to carry: Instead of travelling with homemade meals, tourists prefer the tightly sealed ready-to-eat food packets that can save you from the nightmare of the food leaking, to the oil spoiling your belongings in your suitcase.
- RTE is economical: For most Indian budget travellers, if you're travelling to Europe or any other expensive destination, you'd want to save money by eating RTE food packets (for either lunch or dinner) that you carry instead of spending an unreasonable amount of money on food for every meal.
- A wide-range of options: There's a wide range of ready-to-eat products that cover breakfast, lunch and dinner meals for tourists. From quickly making poha and upma with hot water to having rajma, chhole or dal makhni for lunch or dinner and ending your night on a sweet note as you savour Indian traditional desserts such as halwa (made in a few minutes by just adding hot water) or sewaiyan; RTEs cover pretty much everything.
Curated 'vegetarian' trips by tour operators
You'd be surprised to know that famous travel companies such as Thomas Cook have curated trips to include the food likings of vegetarians. Thomas Cook's "Special Veg Tour" caters to the Indian vegetarian or Jain tourists. Indian restaurants and packed vegetarian lunches or dinners are part of the itinerary in such trips.
- For instance, there's a package tour called 'Manmohak Asia - Singapore and Malaysia' organised by Thomas Cook, where they have vegetarian meal plans for their tourists.
What tour operators say
- DailyO asked Rohit Khattar, the founder of 'IKIGAI - Your Travel Genie', a group-tour company, if he recommended that his clients carry RTE food packets. He said, "When we travel to the Russian Arctic or when the group is travelling to Siberia, our only option is RTE food packets since vegetarian or Indian food is very limited."
- He added, "In a list of things to carry, I advise my clients to carry at least 10 RTE food packets."
- Khattar noted that Indians are very fussy with food and it's very difficult to satisfy them, "So, it's always advisable and recommended that tourists carry a certain number of RTE food packets."
RTE growth after the pandemic
RTE food items have been a boon beyond being a travel essential. RTE has made lives of working people easy as they heavily rely on RTE food to fix a quick, inexpensive meal. This adds to the growing popularity of RTE food packets in India.
Ms Divya Batra, Marketing Head of Haldiram's Snack Pvt Ltd, says that there has been a 30% growth in the consumption of RTE food items after the pandemic.
RTE food brands can vouch for the fact that their economical and really quick to cook food items have made them a perfect and an ideal go-to option for Indians abroad. Do you too carry RTE food packs when you are travelling?