Zappfresh ensures supply of high-quality meat, bypassing butcher shops

Meat procured from local vendors and supermarkets is often from animals raised under the unhygienic and inhumane condition of common feedlots, and grossly overburdened slaughterhouses. Animals in these common feedlots are treated with antibiotics to hide illnesses, growth hormones to increase production and other chemicals to increase shelf life, which may affect the health of consumers.
 
Zappfresh, an online fresh meat brand run by Gurugram-based DSM Fresh Foods Pvt Ltd, provides a solution to this by ensuring that the meat reaching customers’ doorstep is hygienic and free from chemicals, antibiotics and preservatives.
 
Co-founded by Shruti Gochhwal and Deepanshu Manchanda, the farm to fork meat company has recently raised Rs 200 million from Amit Burman, vice-chairman, Dabur India, and SIDBI Venture Capital.
 
“I see great potential in the ‘e-market for meat’ and Zappfresh has had an impressive growth story. The business model is innovative and the use of technology in the supply chain management has allowed for the possibility of a sustainable scale-up capability. I look forward to being part of this venture and its success,” said Burman.
 
Concept
 
ZappFresh is all about fresh high-quality meat. The company sources from high-quality meat farms around Gurugram. “We conduct inspections and periodic quality checks ensure superior quality,” said Gochhwal.
 
Customers can choose from a range of over 50 items, including the whole chicken, mutton, seafood, exotic meats like quail, turkey, and pre-cooked items like kababs, chicken popcorn, marinated barbecue pieces and various cold cuts like ham, sausages and salami.  They can place their order by downloading the company’s app and calling or texting via Whatsapp.
 
Zappfresh partners with high-quality farms to bring fresh meat from the “best breeds”, bypassing local mandis, wholesalers and butcher shops.
 
Meats are delivered hygienically through a unique end-to-end cold chain supply that ensures consistent freshness from farm to table without freezing or exposing meats to any preservatives or water.
 
“We guarantee same day stock delivery within two hours or on a prescribed schedule. Our strength has been the control of quality and speed of delivery. The back-end cold supply chain is aided by strong proprietary technology to control inventory,” said the co-founder.
 
Opportunities
 
The meat market is estimated in India at Rs 1,100 billion, with a compound annual growth rate of 18 per cent over the past few years. The average spending on meat by a three-member family is about Rs 2,500 every month.
 
“The domestic meatspace is empty. The largest players are usually for B2B (business to business) and export. They are rarely available for B2C (business to consumer) consumption. We identified this huge gap, and today, we are overwhelmed with the number of orders we get in a day," she said.
 
While the company operates on a retail-first model, focussing on B2C market it makes money on every order delivered.
 
Road Ahead
 
Currently providing services in Delhi and Gurugram, the company has around 100,000 customers with a 90 per cent retention rate and processes 700 orders in a day during weekdays. The orders, according to the co-founder, surges to about 1,300 per day on weekends.
 
The farm-to-table start-up aims to cover the Delhi-NCR area in six months and aims to process 3,000 orders a day and expects the customer’s base to grow to nearly 300,000.
 
The company claims it has operationally broken even and aims to break even overall by December 2018.
 
The co-founder said, “The critical part is robust supply chain and effective technology, in which we have invested from Day One and as we grow we will keep bettering it."
 
The company will use the funds to hire people in key departments and increase storage capacity.
 
“This investment will aid our back-end support along with expansion in newer markets after having laid a strong foundation in Delhi-NCR," said Manchanda.
 
The company in 2016 and  2017 had raised Rs 60 million from angel investors.
 

FACT BOX
 

• Inception: 2015
• Area of business:  Online meat delivery
• Funding: $200 mn from  Amit Burman of Dabur India and SIDBI Venture Capital; ~60 mn earlier from angel investors 
• User base:  Around 100,000; 700 orders in a day during weekdays

 

Expert take: The brand must diversify

Amit Sachdev, Poultry/meat consultant, Techpro India

Zappfresh as a concept is a refreshing and easy way to buy meat online. The concept of farm-to-fork supply chain ensures the quality of meat. As a brand they are moving forward with an integrated approach, eliminating local mandis and butcher’s role, and sourcing the meat directly from high-quality farms. This enables them to control the processing of the meat internally hence the quality is maintained, which is the most important in the meat business.
 
Moving forward, they should be very careful about the sourcing and choose the right set of farmers, who use the best practices in farms to maintain the product standardisation. To scale up to the next level the brand must diversify the types and sources of meat, products and market. Moving into diversified ways to deliver right kind of products to the customer will act as a catalyst to scale up the business.