Food and beverage looks like an easy category to advertise: everyone eats, products photograph well, and a snack or a cold coffee is an impulse purchase. The economics say otherwise. Average order values are low, margins after distribution are thin, and a large share of urban buying has moved to quick-commerce apps where the brand does not own the customer relationship. On top of that, food advertising in India is regulated more specifically than most categories, by FSSAI's Advertising and Claims Regulations and by ASCI's code. This piece covers how I think about those three forces together. It builds on my broader piece on Indian D2C, and it does not replace advice from a food regulatory specialist on specific claims.
Decide where the sale happens before you plan media
The first question for an F and B brand is not which ad platform, it is where the customer buys. For many packaged food and beverage brands in metros, quick-commerce apps have become a major sales channel alongside the brand's own site, modern trade and marketplaces. Each channel needs a different measurement approach. On your own website you control the pixel, the Conversions API and the customer data. On quick-commerce apps you usually do not: you see sales and the app's own ad metrics, but not who bought. That changes how you read Meta or YouTube results. A strong awareness campaign may lift quick-commerce sales that never show up as a website conversion, so judging it only on site ROAS will undervalue it. In practice I look at total sales by channel and by city alongside platform-reported results, and where budgets allow, run geographic tests: increase spend in some cities, hold it in comparable ones, and compare sales across all channels.
Quick-commerce advertising
The large quick-commerce apps sell their own advertising, typically sponsored placements in search results and category listings, plus banner and brand-led formats. These behave more like marketplace ads than social ads. The buyer is already in a shopping app with intent, so search placements for category terms ("cold coffee", "protein bar") are often the most direct lever, and your product listing, price and ratings matter as much as the bid. Three practical points. Availability comes first: ads for a product that is out of stock in a dark store waste money, so stock coverage by city is a media input, not just an ops metric. Treat brand terms defensively: competitors can bid on category and sometimes brand searches. And be careful comparing the app's reported return on ad spend with your other channels, since each platform measures with its own rules and windows. I would not quote a typical ROAS for these platforms because I have not seen reliable public benchmarks; build your own baseline by app and city.
FSSAI advertising and claims rules
The Food Safety and Standards (Advertising and Claims) Regulations, 2018 apply to food business operators and marketers advertising food, including claims on labels, and businesses had to comply by 1 July 2019. FSSAI's consolidated versions set out general principles that include claims being truthful, unambiguous, meaningful and not misleading, and not encouraging excess consumption of a food. Many nutrition and health claims listed in the regulations' schedules can be made if you meet the stated criteria, while claims outside those standards may need approval from the Food Authority. Press coverage of the notified rules, hosted on FSSAI's own site, also describes bans on advertising that undermines the importance of healthy lifestyles, portrays a food as a complete replacement for a normal meal, or disparages other manufacturers' products. Words such as "natural", "fresh", "pure" and "original" are restricted, and a brand or fancy name using them needs a disclaimer. The regulations have been amended several times, so check the current consolidated text on fssai.gov.in for any specific claim.
ASCI guidelines for food and beverage ads
ASCI's code includes guidelines specific to food and beverage advertising, with particular caution around products high in fat, sugar and salt. They say ads should not mislead about nutritional value, should not suggest a product will directly improve intelligence or physical ability without substantiation, should not encourage excessive consumption or show portions out of line with the occasion, and should not undermine healthy lifestyles or good dietary practice such as eating fresh fruit and vegetables. For performance teams, this is mostly a creative brief issue. A hook that frames a snack as a meal replacement, a reel that shows someone finishing three packs in one sitting, or a beverage claim about energy or focus without data behind it can all create problems. As with beauty, I keep a single approved claims sheet that every ad, creator script and listing draws from. Influencer content for food brands is also covered by ASCI's influencer disclosure rules and the Department of Consumer Affairs' endorsement guidance.
Repeat purchase decides the budget
Most F and B products have low average order values, and after discounts, delivery and platform commissions the contribution margin on a first order is often small or negative. That means acquisition can only be justified by repeat purchase. Before setting a CAC target, measure repeat behaviour from your own data: for D2C orders, the share of first-time customers who reorder within 30, 60 and 90 days, and how many orders they place in their first six months. For quick-commerce, where you lack customer-level data, use proxies such as sales stability in a city after a campaign ends. Then work backwards. If a customer is worth a certain contribution margin over six months, that is your ceiling for blended CAC, and you need enough cash to wait for it. Subscriptions, bundles and larger pack sizes on your own site raise first-order value and pull repeat forward. Sampling and trial packs can lower the barrier to a first purchase, but measure whether trial buyers convert to full-price repeat before scaling them.
A working plan for the first 90 days
Month one is foundations: confirm where sales happen by channel and city, set up clean tracking on your own site including the Conversions API, agree a claims sheet reviewed against FSSAI and ASCI requirements, and pull cohort repeat rates from existing order data. Month two is testing: a small number of creative concepts built around taste, occasion and format rather than health claims you cannot substantiate, plus quick-commerce search ads on your core category terms in the cities where stock is reliable. Month three is reading the results properly: compare total sales across channels in test and control cities, check whether new customers on your own site are reordering, and move budget toward the combinations that show repeat, not just first orders. Throughout, keep platform-reported ROAS as one input among several, and make the decision on contribution margin and repeat. If your D2C orders include cash on delivery, adjust for RTO the same way any Indian D2C brand should.
Sources
FSSAI, Compendium of Food Safety and Standards (Advertising and Claims) Regulations, 2018 (version of 16 November 2021): https://fssai.gov.in/upload/uploadfiles/files/Compendium_Advertising_Claims_Regulations_16_11_2021.pdf . FSSAI, Amendments to the Advertising and Claims Regulations: https://www.fssai.gov.in/cms/Amendment-FSS-Advertising-Claims.php . Times of India coverage of the notified regulations, hosted by FSSAI (27 November 2018): https://fssai.gov.in/upload/media/FSSAI_News_Adv_TOI_27_11_2018.pdf . FSSAI news clipping on restricted label terms (3 December 2018): https://fssai.gov.in/upload/media/FSSAI_News_Labels_FNB_03_12_2018.pdf . ASCI, The ASCI Code and guidelines: https://www.ascionline.in/the-asci-code-guidelines/ . Department of Consumer Affairs, Endorsement Know-hows! (20 January 2023): https://consumeraffairs.nic.in/sites/default/files/PIB1892527.pdf
FAQ
The main ones are FSSAI's Food Safety and Standards (Advertising and Claims) Regulations, 2018, as amended, and ASCI's code, which has specific guidelines for food and beverage ads. Influencer content is also covered by ASCI's influencer guidelines and the Department of Consumer Affairs' 2023 endorsement guidance. Get specific claims reviewed by a food regulatory specialist.
If a meaningful share of your sales happens there, usually yes, starting with search placements on core category terms in cities where your stock is reliable. Treat stock availability as a media input, and build your own baseline by app and city rather than comparing app-reported returns directly with other channels.
Work it out from repeat purchase, not the first order. Measure how many orders a new customer places in their first six months and the contribution margin on those orders. That margin is the ceiling for blended CAC, and you need the cash to wait for it to come back.