From the modest kitchens of middle-class homes to the pantries of India's 5-star hotels,
bigbasket has now established itself as the preferred grocery partner for all. In what can be called another milestone, bigbasket clocked Rs 100 crore annualized turnover by Mar 2017 from its B2B food service business with its offerings of meats, private labels, staples, F&V and gourmet products to HoReCa(Hotels, Restaurants & Caterers) segment. The company would be investing Rs 50 Crores over next 12 months as it expands the business nationally.
The HoReCa business was started in June 2016 and it has already tasted early success in this sector by becoming the preferred supplier of fruits and vegetables for some of the finest hotel chains, multi-cuisine restaurants, and caterers. Hotels like Le Meridien, JW Marriott, Sheraton, and Westin are part of bigbasket's first set of key accounts which are already procuring full assortment of products from the e-retailer. bigbasket also has a diversified presence across industry segments, leading institutional caterers like Sodexo, CSS, HMS Host, restaurant chains like VasudevAdiga’s, Barbeque Nation, Punjabi by Nature, Nandhana, WOWMOMO! Are some of their other clients. Among the corporate institutions, Tata Motors, Bosch, Bhartiya, Cisco, and Airbus also source their food and pantry products from bigbasket.
Speaking on the expansion plans, Mr. Abhinay Choudhari, Co-Founder & Head New Initiatives in a statement said, "bigbasket is already the grocer of choice for users across segments – B2C and B2B. With the current offering, we will expand our range of products like imported meats, organic vegetables, private label staples, and gourmet range for the HoReCa segment as well. The company is setting up dedicated distribution centres across 8 cities to scale up the business and has plans to achieve Rs 500 crore exit rate by end of FY 2018.”
In the words of one of the happy customers of bigbasket,
Mr Vijaya Bhaskaran, Chef LeMeridien, Bangalore - “The experience of buying our daily requirement for our hotel from bigbasket has been very satisfying. Procuring quality ingredients at the right price and at the right time was always a challenge for the chefs. bigbasket as a valued partner has stepped in and eased the process of procurement. The process of ordering online is convenient and the deliveries have been always on time. Any gap is addressed promptly by the efficient team at the bigbasket. We are immensely pleased that we switched over to bigbasket. I would highly recommend bigbasket to Chefs Community.”
The 5 year old startup has also entered into tie-up with OYO rooms. Through this platform, almost 100+ flagship properties of OYO rooms directly order from bigbasket.
As per
Mr. Abhinay Choudhari, “bigbasket is the first Indian company to come up with a complete tech-based solution from ordering to delivery to inventory management for HoReCa segment. With our presence in 25 cities we can be a one stop shop (single vendor) across cities for the entire product range across all categories. We will be able to provide full transparency in the procurement function with 24/7 online MIS on prices, purchases, invoices etc. thereby enhancing control and minimizing administrative overhead and leakages. We can set up corporate hierarchy in the system in a mother - child relationship to control daily purchases by each property and an ability to consolidate invoices across properties with single payment by central office / HO thereby reducing administrative overhead in reconciliation and payment handling. Our order handling technology & delivery infrastructure will provide consistency and predictability and high service levels with no manual intervention.”
To quote Mr Murali Murthy, Executive Chef, HMS Host Bangalore – “I Would like to appreciate bigbasket for their quality of products. The association with bigbasket has helped us to an extent in managing our operations. The process of ordering online is fantastic. We always get response with a professional approach from the team of big basket.”
bigbasket’s advantage is in its private labels with direct sourcing ability backed by its strong tech-based service model. Fruits and vegetables are a clear differentiator for the businessas it now has collection centres spread across the country to source the produce directly from the farmers. On-time delivery and on-the-spot returns process is making life much easier – whether it is the homemaker or the chef!
At present, bigbasket has 4 million registered customers and a presence in over 25 cities across India. Its customers, affectionately called as “bigbasketeers”, can choose from a vast selection of 20,000 products across 1000 brands – from fresh fruits and vegetables, rice, dals, spices and seasonings to packaged products, beverages, personal care products, and meats. The company has consistently added features to its website and mobile app along the way. It is also using analytics to offer a better shopping experience, such as the SmartBasket feature, which allows for a customer to complete his monthly grocery purchase in under 3 minutes.
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