Snapshots of Food Industry News
Tata Enters E-grocery Segment with Stake in BigBasket
Tata Group and BigBasket have inked an agreement where Tata Group has bought a majority stake of about 68% in BigBasket for Rs.9,500 crore. Tata Group already has a presence in the Indian retail market across categories, and since an online presence seemed necessary, this deal will ensure faster entry into the e-Grocery segment. The deal will help BigBasket get the needed funds for the next growth wave. Grocery is the largest contributor to the retail basket of Indian consumers. After the COVID-19 lockdown e-grocery saw a huge rise as the consumer base reached even smaller towns and diverse income groups in all categories including fresh fruit and vegetables.
The Tata Group believes that over the nest few years online grocery is likely to grow strongly
to reach USD $24Bn by 2025, which is even higher than pre-COVID estimates. Tata Group sees this as a good opportunity as the consumer base they can cater to includes varying customer segments like convenience and value-based consumers in Metros Tier I as well as Tier II cities. The e-grocery space has varied options like stock-up vs. top-up vs. on-demand. Tata would like to be a part of this segment as it caters to larger value focused consumers and goes beyond the top-ten cities.
Keventers Enter New Partnership to Give a Boost to Delivery Business.
Dairy brand Keventers, has tied up with cloud kitchen platform ZFW Hospitality to scale its delivery business. The dairy brand will deliver to over 80 stores across Delhi, Mumbai, Pune and other cities and ZFW will assist in expansion across the multiple geographies. ZFW will also set-up a network and provide operational support to Keventers’ growing delivery business. The partnership will help in the rollout of Keventers pre-packaged ice cream consumer packs, which have been receiving a good feedback across Delhi-NCR.
The two parties will jointly focus on strengthening brand identity, last-mile efficiency and consumer base. ZFW has already phased out the launch of the 80 Keventers stores in the western region in March and April. ZFW enables the growth of F&B and D2C (direct to consumer) brands without the upfront investment of setting up a physical kitchen. ZFW does not require any new equipment from brands or kitchen partners and brands are able to full fill on-demand delivery orders at hyperlocal penetration in a short time frame.
Crèmeitalia’s Launches Natural Cream Cheese
Dairy brand Crèmeitalia has launched its latest natural cream cheese product across the country. Made with high-quality dairy, natural cream cheese spread has no emulsifying salts. The soft, rich cheese is perfect as a dip or spread for savoury dishes. It can also double up as a great dessert ingredient and is a favourite on-the-go snack that is both hassle-free and meant for the entire family. Other offerings from the company include Sour Cream and a variety of cheeses like Mozzarella, Ricotta, Pizza Cheese, etc. The product will be sold in packs of 200gms and is priced at Rs 305, with a shelf life of two months from the date of manufacture. It will be available in all premier stores like The Baker’s Dozen, Foodhall, Nature’s Basket, Benzer, and Lavender. Customers can also order deliveries online from the brand’s own website and retailers like Big Basket and Swiggy.
French Yogurt Brand Mamie Yova Launched in India
The start-up Heritage Novandie Foods Private Limited has launched its first line of products by introducing the French yogurt recipes for the Indian market. The brand called Mamie Yova will initially be available across 5 cities in India – Mumbai, Pune, Surat, Ahmedabad, and Baroda. The company has plans to soon scale it up to Hyderabad and Bengaluru. Heritage Foods Ltd is bringing the milestone brand to India through Novandie, a subsidiary of Andros France. They have invested in the state of art facility at Palghar, Maharashtra and hope to make the French brand an Indian brand for the Indian consumers. The company will also be the first to use Augmented Reality (AR) to create a brand connect with the audience, explain product usage, and improve their experience all through phones.
French yogurts are known to combine the goodness of milk, fruits and probiotic cultures for good gut health and immunity. Mamie Yova’s milk and real fruit-based French recipe ‘Stirred Yogurts’ and a new unique drinkable yogurt product called ‘Yo Pop’ are a complete blend of nourishment and fulfilment and will match Indian taste buds. Each product category offers four variants where the stirred fruit yogurts include Mango, Strawberry, Lychee and Blueberry. The Yo Pop, a unique product designed exclusively for the Indian market and comes in flavours like Banana, Vanilla, Pina Colada and Mango. Both the products will be made available through multiple distributors and retailers, spread across modern trade, standalone supermarkets, and ecommerce channels.
Japanese Brand Kikkoman Enters India
The world’s leading producer of naturally brewed soy sauce, Kikkoman Corporation, has announced operations in India with Kikkoman India Private Limited. Kikkoman, which is a Japanese heritage brand, has been one of the most preferred brands of soy sauce in over 100 countries and consumers associate it as one of the best soy sauches. In India it has first introduced its renowned naturally brewed ‘Honjozo’ soy sauce. The Honjozo method of brewing using only 4 ingredients: water, soybeans, wheat and salt. During the fermentation process that lasts several months, more than 300 different aroma components are generated within Kikkoman Soy Sauce, including hints of flowers, fruits, vanilla and coffee.
Kikkoman Soy Sauce is a versatile all-purpose seasoning that can be used for all cuisines, including cooking Asian, Western, Japanese, and Indian dishes. Kikkoman aims to become the market leader in the soy sauce and Asian sauces category, within the growing FMCG market in India. India is one of the biggest emerging markets for global businesses and a key driver of growth in Asia. The market entry strategy is to first reach consumers through the hospitality and restaurant sector, starting with a range of Kikkoman Naturally Brewed Soy Sauce. This will be followed by the launch of other soy sauce related seasonings for both the food service and consumer retail markets.
Food Innovation Start-up Samiyosa Set to Raise Rs.5 Crore
Samiyosa, a food-innovation start-up founded in 2019, began its journey by introducing never-seen-before flavours and twists in the traditional age-old Indian snack, Samosa. Samiyosa created a concept of going the Subway-model for Indian Samosas. In a Create-Your-Own-Samosa model, a person can choose whether they want the regular fried samosa or the healthier option of Baked Samosa. Similarly, they can choose their dough base and the fillings from a wide variety of options at Samiyosa outlets. Samiyosa was founded by Delhi-based entrepreneur-duo, Anshul Valecha and Ankit Valecha.
The start-up is now set to raise Rs 5 Crores from a group of angel investors and early-stage funds, which will be used over a period of 12-15 months for franchise building, advertising and creating a strong foothold in new geographies. The funding will be used to invest massively on marketing, more on R&D of product development and franchise development across the country. In the last 6 months, Samiyosa has been expanding aggressively across NCR with stores in Gurgaon, New Delhi and Noida. Present in high-end locations like Ambience Mall in Gurgaon, Pacific Mall in New Delhi, as well as the old school classic location of Pitampura, Samiyosa is now expanding its footprints across the country. The brand has already entered Ahmedabad with a cloud kitchen model. They aim to reach 100 stores by 2023.
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