TenderCuts Aims to Reach 100 Cr Top Line in Next 3 Year

Being an avid meat lover myself, I wasn’t satisfied with the quality of meat I get from the market. The meat is not hygienic and there were no convenient options to purchase the meat. There weren’t any players who delivered quality meat at the doorstep. There was a definite gap in the market on what people want and what was available. This got me thinking about options that we can explore to penetrate this niche segment. About a year later, TenderCuts was born.

BWDisrupt interacted with Nishant Chandran, CEO, TenderCuts to know more about the pilot operations in January 2016, and is founded by Mr. Nishanth Chandran, CEO, GFM Retail Pvt. Ltd.

Share with us what’s special about this venture and how it’s different from its competitors?
There are many factors that set us apart:
- Omni-channel meat buying experience
- Fresh and hygienically processed meat
- RO water washed meat
- Chemical/Preservative free meat
- Antibiotic and hormone free meat
- Ease of ordering through the comfort of your home
- Cold chain technology from Farm to Home – crucial to our industry although often neglected
- Variety of meats and cuts – ready to cook
- Home delivery within 90 minutes
- Our current revenue model is B2C. We procure from fishermen and farmers directly and therefore encourage micro entrepreneurship, and sell it to the customers
- TenderCuts was born of the vision to provide fresh, quality meat conforming to FSSAI, in line with WHO standards, the desire to bring back the real taste of good meat, and to give people unlimited choice, of meats, cuts and flavors, in the comfort of the their home

How did you manage to fund this idea?
TenderCuts was started with an initial self funding for INR 3 Crore. We have also received an Angel investor funding from Mr. Suresh Krishn, MD, Isha Homes, who has invested INR 4.6 Crores in this venture.

What are/what will be your monetization paths?
We aim to expand to other cities by the year 2018. Our target is a 100 Crore top-line within the next 3 years. Currently, we are focusing only on the B2C segment. Although we are getting enquiries from restaurants, we will very soon open the market to B2B as well.

Tell us how the business has grown so far?
We started our pilot phase In January 2016, with just one retail store in the city (Chennai). Thereafter, we had a pre-launch phase in September 2016, expanding deliveries to cover most of Chennai. By January 2017 we got Dr. Chef Damu as our brand ambassador. Thus far, we have gathered 30,000 plus customers in this short period of time, with a growth rate of 100%, every 3- 4 months.

Our product offerings of TenderCuts includes s all varieties of fresh-cut meat like Chicken, Goat, Sea Food, Marinades, Lamb, etc. They do multiple levels of checks to ensure the meat is hygienic. The process followed by TenderCuts is:
1. Procurement: The best livestock breeds are picked directly from farms and fish from fisherman.
2. Warm-Up: To recondition the livestock, they are introduced to a close-to-natural habitat for a period. They also ensure that the meat does not have any antibiotics; growth hormones, etc. (Report says that one out of three chickens have antibiotics in the meat). There are more than 20+ checks done to ensure that the meat is tender, hormone-free and antibiotic-free.
3. Processing: Livestock is processed following in the Halal Method, in a highly sanitized and hygienic state-of-the-art environment. The meat is cleaned using RO water with a constant maintenance of the cold chain, which is crucial to ensure the freshness of the meat.
4. Quality Checking: Weight and health of the livestock are checked and monitored to meet stringent quality standards. The meat is stored at a particular temperature (between 0-4 degrees Centigrade) to make sure that the taste and quality are preserved.
5. Custom Cuts: Meat is processed into predefined cuts by well-trained butchers with approved food-grade knives and equipments. This also makes it easy to cook, saving time in daily life.
6. Packaging: The meat is then packed in a leak-proof, vacuum seal and food-grade self-lock packaging. The packages are stored between 0-4 degree Celsius and delivered to the customer within 90 minutes of order.

What marketing strategies and plans are in place to grow the business?
We are the only player offering Omni-channel buying experience; we are available in physical store, website, mobile app (to be launched soon), and direct calls on the landlines. We also plan to launch a big-bang marketing campaign to acquire customers through Radio, Newspapers, OOH & Social Media as well Currently, we are focusing only on the B2C segment. Although we are getting enquiries from restaurants, we will very soon open the market to B2B as well. Demographically we want to focus on Chennai for next few months, and we will expand to other major metros as the next step. Over 50-55% of our customers are women. We use digital marketing to target our customers, and we see most of our business coming from word of mouth.

What is the market size and opportunity?
Meat consumption is growing and is a very large market. The Chennai market alone has been estimated at potentially INR 2500 Crore and 8 Billion USD, in urban India.

Any challenges faced setting up? Anything unique to your situation?
One of our main challenges was to win the loyalty of the consumers and educate them, who regularly patronize the neighborhood butcher shop. Although the meat sold in such places would be stale, fly & mosquito infested, unclean and cut in a slipshod way, home-makers and buyers still prefer their local butchers for reasons of familiarity and convenience.

Share with us some best memories while running the business.
Best experiences-
We had numerous best experiences, one of this is our Brand Ambassador Chef Damu who is a Guinness book world record holder was our customer! He called us to appreciate our quality and cuts we were using and later became our brand ambassador.