When Global Brands Go Cheap, India Pays in Diabetes

Biscoff was once a premium indulgence in India — a ₹300-a-pack import that only a small, urban, affluent audience could access. The ingredient list, while not perfect, was still relatively cleaner than the average mass-market biscuit found on Indian shelves. But that product no longer exists in the same form. Today, Biscoff sells for ₹10, and with that dramatic price drop has come an equally dramatic shift in formulation. The brand’s India strategy is clear: ultra-cheap, ultra-processed, and ultimately ultra-damaging. This is not “making taste accessible.” This is lowering standards to penetrate a market where unhealthy products can still sell in the millions.

The uncomfortable truth — the one nobody in the food industry wants to say out loud — is that global brands often downgrade their formulations when entering developing markets. Refined oils replace better fats, sugar levels rise, additives multiply, and the overall product becomes less about quality and more about scalability. And because India’s regulations allow far more leeway than markets like the EU, companies get away with it. A biscuit that was once a niche luxury has now been reformulated into yet another high-sugar, high-refined-oil, ultra-processed snack designed primarily for mass consumption, not health.

This strategy becomes especially dangerous in a country already burdened by a massive metabolic crisis. India is the world’s diabetes capital with 101 million diabetics and 136 million prediabetics, according to ICMR (2023). Type 2 diabetes here is growing at nearly three times the global average. Ultra-processed foods (UPFs) are a major contributing factor. Large international studies have consistently linked UPF consumption to obesity, insulin resistance, gut microbiome imbalance, and early-onset diabetes among younger populations. When a ₹300 product becomes ₹10, it’s not just becoming more affordable — it’s entering the daily diet of people who were never its original consumers.

The ₹10 price point flings open the floodgates. Schoolchildren, low-income households, rural families, teenagers with pocket money — everyone now has access to a product that has been reformulated for cost, not nutrition. This isn’t democratizing taste; it’s democratizing metabolic harm. India already suffers from low health literacy, making the situation even more concerning. When harmful food becomes cheap, the consequences don’t show up in shopping carts — they show up in hospital wards years later.

If global brands truly want to enter the Indian mass market, they need to bring better food, not cheaper junk. The country already has enough homegrown options contributing to poor dietary habits. What we need is nutritional responsibility, not strategic downgrading. Every ₹10 ultra-processed biscuit adds to the nation’s healthcare burden — a burden India can no longer afford. This is not a discussion about biscuits. It is a public health alarm that we cannot afford to ignore.