Festive season gifting: India Inc turns to wellness and sustainability

The festive season is almost here. With Onam and Rakshabandhan over, people are now looking forward to Dhanteras and Diwali.

India Inc is set to add the much-needed glimmer to the season by going all out on gifting.

“Even though Diwali is still some time away, inquiries for corporate festive gifting have already started coming in,” says Nanda Kumar, founder and CEO of a Bengaluru-based corporate gifting company, Regalos.

Echoes Shweta Raman, co-founder, The Style Salad, a Chennai-based gift curator. “We are already flooded with orders for corporate gifting in quantities of 500-700 boxes. We expect this to only increase as the bigger festivals inch closer.”

This festive season -- the first one fully out of the shadow of the pandemic -- curators are observing that companies are giving increasing importance to sustainable and eco-friendly products.

“There is a clear shift in people’s minds, where everyone is looking to be more sustainable. Companies, too, are adopting that mantra this year,” says Kumar, adding that it is not just the products in the hampers, but how they are also sourced and manufactured in a more mindful way.

The Style Salad is also seeing requests to include planters and small succulents in the hampers that companies are placing orders for, from companies like Equitas Small Finance Bank and basmati rice brand Double Deer.

Plastic products have been replaced by bamboo ones and terracotta diyas (oil lamps) have been replaced by wooden tea light holders.

“They (companies) want to cut out as much plastic as possible. They also want products that can have multiple uses and be used as keepsakes. We are including things like pens with seeds that can later be planted. Do-It-Yourself (DIY) planter kits are also in high demand,” says Raman.

Packaging too is becoming more sustainable this year, with companies choosing cardboard boxes and ribbons to decorate them instead of using plastic to pack the goodies.

Kumar says another theme that has emerged this year for gifting is wellness.

Orders are also streaming in for Jaipur-based snacking brand, Eat Better Co, which has previously done gifting for companies like Amazon, Lenovo, and Visa.

“People are also now more conscious of what they are eating and more companies are taking healthy snacking more seriously. We have increased production of healthy snacks like hazelnut and chocolate laddoos and vanilla and cacao laddoos, which are made using almonds and cashew and sweetened with jaggery,” says Vidushi Kajaria, co-founder, Eat Better Co.

Premium tea brand VAHDAM India expects the gifting segment during the upcoming festive season to be competitive.

“We have witnessed a high demand for several gifting products, including our loose-leaf tea sets and accessories. These products are popular for both Diwali and Christmas gifting,” says Bala Sarda, founder and CEO, VAHDAM India.

The brand has also seen an increase in demand for advent calendars – a popular concept in the US for Christmas and Halloween — which help people explore newer products, and in this case: new blends of premium teas.

Fuelled by the convenience of online stores, the Indian gifting market is seeing 50 per cent growth year-on-year. The market is made up of three significant segments -- corporate gifting (15 per cent), festive gifting (30 per cent), and personal gifting (55 per cent), says Pulkit Bansal, country head, Anko India, an Australian retail brand that entered the Indian market this year.

“There is clear thought that companies are putting into curating these hampers and there is a fair amount of customisation that is going into making these gift boxes,” says Raman.