Freshtohome to scale omnichannel, overseas presence

Bengaluru: FreshToHome, a Bengaluru-based meat, fish and fresh produce e-tailer, plans to scale up its omnichannel presence, expand across its core market India, as well as West Asia, while focusing on deeper supply chain integration in these markets, said a top company executive.

The startup, which is currently present in about 28 cities including metros, will expand to 56 cities in the next 12 months.

It currently has 14 physical stores and also aims to have 100 stores in the same period.

Last year, FreshToHome closed a $121 million Series C funding round led by Investment Corporation of Dubai (ICD) - the principal investment arm of the Government of Dubai, Investcorp and Ascent Capital, DFC, the Allana Group and other investors.

It currently sells close to 25,000 tonnes of produce a year and around 8 million litres of milk. Meat and fish constitute around 70% of its product portfolio and it entered the fresh fruits and vegetables category in 2019.

“Offline presence and the whole touch and feel experience is important and lends a personal touch. Our offline expansion will be a combination of both standalone as well as multi-branded stores. The second wave was harsh but unlike the first wave, we were operationally ready," Shan Kadavil, co-founder and CEO of FreshToHome said in an interview.

Like many other businesses, covid 2.0 was challenging for the company as well, but Kadavil said the pandemic accelerated a fundamental change in consumer behavior as they turned online. The startup delivers nearly 2 million orders every month.

FreshToHome, which was founded in 2015 by Shan Kadavil and Mathew Joseph, competes with BigBasket, Licious as well as smaller startups.

FreshtoHome is the largest player in the business in United Arab Emirates (UAE) and now plans to expand to all GCC (Gulf Cooperation Council) countries.

“Our ready-to-cook and ready-to-eat products comprise a sizeable portion of our offering now. We also plan to launch a completely clean label (without preservatives) in 3-6 months, where we will sell cold cuts and burger patty,” Kadavil said.

In UAE, the company also offers meatless chicken, mince, and meatballs in the plant-based product category. "We are doing some R&D on that front and experimenting with meatless products for India as well,” he added.

The pandemic helped accelerate online purchasing of meat products as consumers took to branded packaged items and companies improved their supplies and access to the market.

A report by RedSeer earlier this year said urban Indian shoppers are increasingly taking to buying meat online, largely driven by the assurance of safety and hygiene, availability of various products under one umbrella, doorstep service provided by online meat providers.

This led to a two-fold jump in gross merchandise value reported by online meat players as mapped by RedSeer during January-December last year. In 2020, online meat players saw a 10-15% jump in average revenue per user and reported a 10-15% improvement in customer retention.