Every city or region of India is famous for some food product which people all over the world would love to consume e.g. Agra ka petha, Amritsar ki pinni and wadipapad, Kesar, Walnuts, Kahwa tea , Honey from Kashmir , Karachi and Sohan Halwa from Delhi, Khakra from Ahmedabad , Indore ki Sev and so on. But in our country with such diversified flavors, it was difficult to get regional delicacies from across India and the world. Also authentic and original foods that one craves for were not easily available in the neighbourhood.
Sneha Chopra, founder
Exoticflavorsofindia.com, came with a solution and opened an eCommerce startup in Nov 2015 that source delicacies from the most iconic and legendary brands of these products and sell them online. The brand currently offers 250 regional delicacies from over 40 iconic brands. These are products you crave for but don’t get in your neighborhood.
This unique startup aims to bridge the huge gap between demand and supply for Exotic food delicacies from various regions of India as the present food e
-commerce sector is limited to FMCG products or cooked food/restaurant delivery in hyper-local markets.
Sneha started her journey in November 2015 with Manu Khera as the co-founders and has offices in Mumbai, Gurgaon and Ahmedabad for execution of its online business
In a candid interaction with BWdisrupt, Sneha talked about her unique idea of providing delicacies to India How was the idea of Exotic Flavors of India conceptualized? My father was in a transferable job with UP Government and I lived in many cities of UP during my childhood. On many occasions, Dad strongly felt like leaving his job and starting something of his own. So I grew with an ambition to fulfill my Dad’s dream of being a successful entrepreneur.
During my MBA days at ITM Kharghar, Navi Mumbai, I participated in a IIMA Grassroots Innovation Business Plan contest. My plan was shortlisted for presentation and it was a great experience to present to the faculty of IIMA and being awarded the 3rd prize for the contest. Post that, I was offered funding to start the venture and that inspired me to start my entrepreneurial journey.
How does your startup work?We deal only in products with minimum 30 days shelf life.We dispatch the goodies within 24 hours of order receipt and deliver to the customer within 2 days to 8 top cities and upto 6 days for remote locations like North East, Kashmir etc.
What were the challenges your startup faced while setting up this startup?The biggest challenge before us was to manage inventory of perishable goods sourced from across the country and delivered fresh to the customer.
Through smart inventory management and BIG Data analytics, we ensure food products don’t remain in our warehouse for more than 7 days and we discard all products 15 days before expiry date.
Another big challenge we faced was to keep the team motivated while working in high pressure environment. Only a motivated team can keep our customers delighted and that is the biggest focus within our company. We overcame this by empowering the team and giving each person the freedom to work like an entrepreneur.
Who are your competitors?Our category is in the concept building space with very low awareness about the fact regional delicacies are available online. We are building the category and don’t face any competition as such.
How is your business model different from the existing ones?We choose not to be a marketplace so that we can curate the best products for our customers and also ensure delight by way of smart packaging and timely delivery which is a big challenge in the marketplace model due to dependence on thousands of merchants for product quality and delivery.
Who are your clients? How do you look at expanding?All Indians are food lovers and therefore everyone is our target customer. We focus on Food Explorers (people always wanting to try out new food products), migrants (people living away from home town), health Conscious (people looking for health benefits in food products) and occasion based buyers (Diwali, Weddings, Festive) to grow our customer base.
We plan to soon expand to cater to the international market covering NRIs and foreigners wanting to try Indian delicacies.
Traction detailsWe have seen a 50% month-on-month growth in business since our launch. It is very satisfying to see 41% of our customers coming back for a repeat purchase within 90 days of first buy from us.
Funding StatusWe are self funded so far but have initiated talks with venture funds for funding.
The best and worst memories while setting up ..The best memories are getting flooded with “Thank You” calls at our customer support and hardly any complaints so far. One particular customer called to say how he could contribute in our endeavor to support and grow the rich food heritage of India.
The worst memory is getting calls from my mother at midnight asking “Are you coming home tonight?”
Your Marketing Plans so that world know you ..We offer some of the most loved brands in India like Chainaram and Nathus, Delhi, Panchhi Petha Agra, Maganlal Chikki Lonavala, Bansal and Novelty, Amritsar, LMB, Jaipur, Leading Bakers like Moshe’s Mumbai, Flurrys Kolkata, Ellora’s Dehradun, Makaibari Tea, Darjeeling, Leo Coffee, Chennai, Induben Khakrawala Ahmedabad, Prakash and Akash Namkeen, Indore, Hearsons Mumbai, Chaitale Bandhu, Pune across categories like Sweets, Namkeen, Dry Fruits, Bakery, Tea+Coffee, Health foods, Exotic Fruits etc.
Our product road-map to grow to 200 iconic brands of India and 1000 regional delicacies with over 1 lakh delighted customers by end of this year. We target to be India’s most loved food brand and the preferred destination for regional food by 2020.
Market size & opportunityGourmet Food in India is $23 billion market and currently online caters about .005% of this segment. We see a 10,000 times growth in Online Gourmet sales over the next 5 years and as the first movers, we hope to get a significant share of this market.
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This is Meghna Shukla. She lives in Delhi. She is an engineering graduate and currently pursuing MBA from Jaypee Business School. She has a work experience of 2 years in content development. She loves to read and write.
