In a year defined by hyper-convenience, India’s fresh food consumption in 2025 reflected a clear shift in behaviour. While speed-led commerce continued to dominate urban conversations, consumer data from Handpickd, India’s first ‘zero-stock’ fresh commerce startup, showed that growth in fresh food came from consistency and trust rather than indulgence or novelty.
According to Handpickd’s 2025 order data, consumers did not experiment more. They simply ordered more often. Let’s understand how urban India, especially Gurgaon, Noida and Bengaluru ate in 2025. While industry giants fought over discounts on 5kg potato bags, a quieter revolution was happening in the microdelivery segment. According to annual data from Handpickd, the most coveted item of 2025 wasn’t the mighty onion, it was the humble Coriander (Dhania).
This data aligns with broader 2025 market trends where Indian consumers moved away from “pantry loading” (weekly bulk buying) toward “top-up behavior,” ordering ingredients hours, or even minutes, before a meal.
The Insight: Freshness Over Storage
Handpickd’s data reveals that Coriander topped the charts across all formats, single bunches, root-on, and bundles. The dhania–mirchi (coriander-chilli) special combo alone crossed 24,000 orders. This signals that consumers are no longer treating fresh produce apps as digital warehouses, but as an extension of their own fridge. They aren’t buying to store; they are buying to cook now. Tomatoes across hybrid, desi and mixed-size formats were among the most repeatedly reordered items, followed by ginger, capsicum, bottle gourd, cauliflower and Nashik onion.
The data points to regular, everyday cooking rather than bulk purchases or occasion-led consumption.
The Democratisation of ‘Exotic’
Perhaps the most “realistic” yet exciting trend of 2025 was the demystification of gourmet ingredients. The broader market saw a surge in “Global Home Cooking” driven by Instagram food culture, and Handpickd’s numbers confirm this.
Orders for exotic produce skyrocketed 20-fold, leaping from a modest 689 in 2024 to 14,659 in 2025. The critical insight here is integration. Avocados, colored capsicums, and broccoli didn’t replace Indian staples; they joined them. The data shows exotics being checked out alongside tomatoes and ginger, proving that a Tuesday night dinner in 2025 was just as likely to feature a stir-fry or a guacamole toast as it was a dal-chawal.
The ‘Clean Label’ Wave
In 2024, “Ozonised” or “Hydroponic” were buzzwords for the elite. In 2025, they became a middle-class requirement. With news of pesticide usage frequently making headlines, Handpickd saw the share of Ozonised produce rise from 4% to 38%. This 34% swing is not just growth; it is a migration. It suggests that for nearly 4 out of 10 consumers, safety and hygiene have become non-negotiable attributes of freshness and they strongly believe that this number will only grow from here.
The Comfort of Consistency
Despite the exotic boom, the fruit basket remained remarkably grounded.
- Banana Robusta (22,249 orders) took the top spot, proving that while Indians love to experiment with dinner, they prefer their old breakfast habits.
- Coconut Water (13,000+ orders) surged, mirroring a national trend where consumers are swapping carbonated sugar drinks for natural hydration.
- Malai Paneer emerged as a top-selling dairy SKU, reinforcing that even in the age of ultra-processed foods, the Indian consumer craves the “homemade” texture of artisanal dairy.
Summary: The 2025 Kitchen
The data paints a picture of a disciplined, discerning, and demanding consumer. The 2025 shopper didn’t want a fridge full of rotting vegetables; they wanted a fresh bunch of coriander delivered to their doorstep. They were willing to pay for safety (Ozone) and variety (Exotics), but they remained loyal to the staples that define Indian cooking.
Handpickd 2025: Key Food Consumption Stats
• Coriander topped the urban vegetable consumption in 2025, overtaking staples like onion and potato across all formats on Handpickd.
• The dhania–mirchi combo crossed 24,000 orders, making it one of the most frequently reordered SKUs of the year.
• Gurugram led fresh food consumption with 590,149 orders in 2025, recording nearly 4–5x higher volume than other cities on the platform.
• Exotic produce orders jumped 20 times year-on-year, rising from 689 orders in 2024 to 14,659 orders in 2025, the highest growth across any fruit or vegetable category.
• Banana Robusta emerged as the most ordered fruit with 22,249 orders, anchoring everyday fruit baskets.
• Fresh coconut water crossed 13,000 orders, reflecting a growing shift towards natural hydration over packaged beverages.
• Adoption of ozonised produce rose sharply from 4% to 38% in one year, signalling increased consumer focus on clean and safe food.
• Fresh malai paneer ranked among the top-selling dairy SKUs, highlighting preference for products that feel close to homemade quality.
