Bournvita’s removal from the “health drinks” category – revitalization threats?

Learning outcomes Case overview/synopsis On 10 April 2024, the Commerce Ministry of the Government of India directed all the e-commerce platforms that “no such thing as ‘health drink’ defined under the country’s food and safety standards laws) which came as a bolt from the blue to Mr Deepak Iyer, the President for India & Southeast Asia of Mondelez International. As a result, e-commerce platforms, such as Flipkart, Amazon, BigBasket, had to remove all drinks and beverages, such as Bournvita, Horlicks, Protinex, from the health drinks category after receiving the instructions from the Advisory Board of the Ministry of Commerce and Industry, which made Mr Iyer really anxious. Now, under these circumstances, how could Bournvita respond to such challenges to tackle the situation, as public sentiments also changed because of a series of incidents? In this context, the main question that came to Mr Iyer’s mind was to analyse why Bournvita was successful once and how the company could bring back its lost glory, which emerged because of constant media pressure and increase of health-care awareness among the general public of India. The case dealt with health-care, marketing and strategic management issues. Complexity academic level The case is targeted to the PGDM/MBA course. Supplementary material Teaching notes are available for educators only. Subject code CSS8: Marketing.