Tata Salt is trusted everywhere, yet this very ubiquity has quietly flattened its distinctiveness. As the portfolio expanded, overlapping health promises, visually similar packs, and blurred cues began to outpace consumer understanding, turning the shelf into a space of hesitation rather than confidence. What emerged was not a trust problem, but a clarity problem.

Project SaltSense was built to address this gap by shifting the lens from internal product logic to lived consumer logic. The study decoded how salts are organised inside real kitchens, where one person often balances family health, everyday cooking, taste expectations, and moments of pride. Consumers do not evaluate salt by mineral composition or claims, but by the role each salt plays in their daily rhythm and social life.

This reframing revealed a simple truth. People do not buy types of salt, they buy roles. A dependable everyday default, a salt chosen during health moments, another that elevates taste and confidence, and those reserved for hosting, display, or special occasions. When these roles are clearly defined, choice feels intuitive, and the category opens up. When they blur, shoppers disengage or default.

SaltSense translates this understanding into a consumer-led portfolio logic that restores role clarity, creates headroom for premiumisation through visibility, design, and format, and unlocks a future-ready innovation pathway. Crucially, it does this while strengthening Tata Salt’s Desh ka Namak equity, not by changing what Tata stands for, but by making its role visible and indispensable across the modern Indian kitchen.