Packaged Indian snacks were for decades sold only in Indian groceries. Their appearance in mainstream American stores followed a specific commercial path, and the path selected which products travelled.
Shelf-stable products qualify for the easiest route
A national retailer wants items it can hold in a warehouse and ship without temperature control. Dry fried snacks and sealed sweets meet that requirement; fresh dairy sweets do not.
That is why the first Indian products to appear widely were savory mixes, crisps and sealed confections rather than anything from a counter.
The selection therefore reflects logistics rather than popularity, and it explains why the American impression of Indian snacking is skewed toward the dry end of the category.
The ethnic aisle was the entry point, not the destination
Most brands entered through a dedicated international section, which requires less commitment from the retailer and carries lower expectations on turnover.
Products that sold well there gradually earned placement in the main snack aisle, where the volume is far larger and the competition is with established domestic brands.
That second move is the hard one, since it means competing on price per ounce and on packaging that must communicate to a shopper with no prior context.
Packaging changed more than the recipes did
Products crossing over generally kept their formulation and changed their presentation: smaller bags, resealable formats, English-first labeling and clearer descriptions of what is inside.
Heat levels are often described explicitly rather than assumed, since a shopper unfamiliar with the category cannot judge it from the name.
Diaspora demand built the base the crossover stood on
A brand needs volume before a national buyer will look at it, and that early volume came from Indian groceries serving households that already knew the products.
Those stores functioned as a proving ground with almost no marketing cost, which is why the brands that crossed over are largely the ones that were already dominant there.
The next constraint is refrigeration, not interest
The categories still missing from mainstream shelves are the chilled and fresh ones, which need cold chain and fast turnover that a general retailer is reluctant to allocate.
Where those products do appear it is usually in frozen form, which is a workaround for the cold chain rather than evidence that fresh distribution has been solved.