'No more toffees instead of chhuttas': UPI attributed for killing candy business in India

Giving toffees in lieu of the loose cash was a key strategy by the shopkeepers.

It may be noted that payment through Unified Payments Interface (UPI) crossed a milestone of Rs 11 lakh crore in September.

You may have come across incidents when your nearest Kirana, grocery or dairy shop may have handed back toffees/candies to you instead of returning Re 1 or 2 coins or loose change often called 'chhutta' in India. That was a mutually beneficial trick both for the shopkeepers as well as for the candy-makers. While the trick kept the toffee sales up and running, the shopkeepers also used to get a decent margin on every packet of candies sold. However, thanks to the digital payment interface UPI, all that is changing slowly. 

Abhishek Patil, the founder of GrowthX, shared a post on LinkedIn explaining how the UPI killed the candy business in India.

"Back in early 2010s almost all big players, including Mondelez, Mars, Nestle, Perfetti Van Melle, Parle & ITC reported staggering growth & future prospects," wrote Patil.

Explaining what has really changed in a decade, Patil said that before UPI, shopkeepers used to 'shamelessly trade toffees for loose cash'. "These small amounts over days did wound up becoming large sums of money, as accepted by many buyers in studies. With UPI, all of this stopped. People paid the exact amount that was due with no scope for change, ultimately eating up the daily toffee sales," he added.

Patil said that during the Covid-19 pandemic, everyone wanted to do contactless payments and with the rise of digital payments, 'toffee went off the picture'. 

"No chocolate (toffee) company would have ever thought of finance products as their competition," he wrote.

It may be noted that payment through Unified Payments Interface (UPI) crossed a milestone of Rs 11 lakh crore in September. During the month, 678 crore transactions in volume terms were done on the platform.