At an Ikea store in India, a shopper’s journey often ends where it quietly begins again—with a tray of food.
“Food is a major driver of traffic for us. It’s among the biggest reasons customers walk into our stores,” Adosh Sharma, country commercial manager at Ikea India, told Mint in an interview.
What started as an in-store convenience has evolved into a core lever for footfall, repeat visits and customer engagement. Now, Ikea wants to scale its F&B (food and beverage) offerings further, sharpening focus on footfall-led growth and store productivity, Sharma said.
Part of this approach is to anchor visits around routine and family engagement. “It starts with kids’ meals—we run ‘Happy Wednesdays’ where children come in and get a soft toy,” Sharma said.
Menus are localized to reflect Indian preferences. “We’ve created an eclectic mix of Indian and Swedish food. We realized early on that retailers simply cannot come in with the assumption that they know everything the Indian customers want,” he added.
The Swedish giant now plans to deepen this localization as it scales its food offerings across cities, tailoring menus to regional tastes to drive repeat visits.
The scale of this shift is already visible. Food already contributes just under 10% of Ikea India’s business and significantly increases dwell time (the time a customer spends in the store) by about 2 hours, according to company data.
For the broader sector, Ikea India’s playbook shows how retail stores are evolving into experience-led destinations where food is central, driving traffic, extending engagement, and strengthening store economics.
In fact, the F&B sector continues to fuel India’s retail real estate growth, with its share of overall retail leasing jumping to 22% in 2025 from 16% in 2023, according to data from property consultant JLL.
Appetite for economics
The growing importance of food aligns with Ikea India’s push to improve its overall business performance. The company reported a widening of its net loss to ₹1,325.2 crore in 2024-25, while revenue from operations declined 3.33% to ₹1,749.5 crore, according to regulatory filings shared by business research platform Tofler, underscoring the need to drive higher store productivity and conversion.
Food plays a distinct role in that equation. Unlike furniture purchases, which are infrequent and high-value, food drives frequency and repeat visits, helping bring customers back into stores more often.
“I haven’t seen anyone come into Ikea and leave empty-handed. People may come in for a casual visit, but they almost always pick up something along the way,” Sharma said.
F&B complements this behaviour by widening the entry funnel. Customers may walk in for a meal or a quick break and end up browsing more categories, increasing the likelihood of conversion, according to Sharma.
Affordability remains central to this strategy. “For instance, we sell hot dogs for ₹69. That’s the level of affordability we’re trying to bring to our food,” Sharma said. Low-priced packaged food like chips, candy bars, frozen meat, and beverages further encourage repeat purchases.
In India, chicken meatballs are the bestseller, with sales crossing 300,000 units in 2024-25 (Sept 2025 to Aug 2025). Close to 70 food items cost under ₹200, according to Sharma.
This pricing aligns with Ikea’s broader value positioning in India, where entry-level pricing is designed to encourage trial and repeat visits. Even as online sales (through Ikea India's website) account for around 30% of total sales, physical stores remain central to the experience, Sharma noted.
Blueprint for retail growth
Ikea India’s experience reflects a deeper shift in how consumers interact with retail spaces. Shopping is increasingly blended with leisure, dining and social interaction, particularly in urban India.
“In India, food is not just fuel, it’s passion, and we caught that early on,” Sharma said.
Ikea India now engages nearly 300 million visitors annually across online and offline channels, with over 4 million loyalty programme members. For large-format retail, this model offers a clear takeaway: as e-commerce captures convenience-led purchases, physical stores must differentiate through experience. Food is emerging as one of the most effective tools to do so, according to Sharma.
Ikea sees this as a long-term structural advantage. “Food is and will continue to be a major driver for traffic into our stores,” Sharma said.