RPSG Group's Nature's Basket adds luxury food retailing to its cart

From charcuterie to cheese room and white strawberries of Japan to sea asparagus from Holland, the RP-Sanjiv Goenka Group’s Nature’s Basket is stepping into luxury food retailing with large-format artisanal experiential stores modelled on Harrods Food Hall in London.

The first such store from the Goenka stable, spread across 12,500 square feet (sq ft), will open at the Phoenix Palladium mall in Mumbai on Saturday.

Shashwat Goenka, chairman, Spencer’s Retail, said Nature’s Basket was essentially in the gourmet retailing and premium space. “We are now going into luxury grocery, which will be heavy on experience,” he said.

Nature’s Basket is a subsidiary of Spencer’s Retail.

“It’s modelled on the Harrods Food Hall concept. This is going to redefine what gourmet luxury is -- not just for high-end consumers but for every aspirational consumer as well,” he said.

The concept stores under the Nature’s Basket Artisan Pantry brand would have an area of 7,000-12,500 sq ft – much larger than the 2,000-2,500 sq ft Nature’s Basket stores. Nature’s Basket would be at the premium end and Nature’s Basket Artisan Pantry at the luxury end, Goenka explained.

That would mean a range of offerings from the Artisan Pantry – truffle to nut bar, spice souk, chocolate factory, cheese room, live honey counter, caviar bar, exotic fresh meats, et al.

“We are also launching a first-of-its-kind concept called Salt Bar, which is going to have over 20 varieties of salt. We will be selling big salt slabs on which you can actually cook food,” Goenka said.

The farmers’ market, he promises, will be a ‘little different’, sourcing exotic fruits and vegetables from all parts of the world, including the remotest of locations in India.  

A lot of things that are going to be available in these concept stores will be for the first time in India – whether it’s a Buddha hand lemon, or white strawberries or fresh yuzu fruit from Japan or cactus fig from Europe, Goenka said. “Sea asparagus is something that’s not available anywhere in Asia and we are actually going to be importing it from Holland.”

After Palladium mall, two other Artisan Pantry concept stores are slated for launch this financial year – Alipore, Kolkata and Bandra Linking Road, Mumbai. That would take the total stores under the Nature’s Basket portfolio to 35. Next financial year, three to five Nature’s Basket Artisan Pantry stores are likely.

“We will take the concept beyond Mumbai and Kolkata to Delhi and Bengaluru as well,” Goenka said.

Goenka believes that there is a market for luxury grocery items. “There is huge demand and a market. A large part of the research for the concept store came from our existing Nature’s Basket consumers. People are looking for experiences and are willing to pay a premium.”

How many can each city absorb? “Different cities have different potential,” Goenka pointed out.

The Artisan Pantry concept stores, which are much larger, with premium SKUs commanding higher margins, would help accelerate the course to profitability for Nature’s Basket. Goenka said the stores were targeting break-even from the second month of operation.

Spencer’s Retail had acquired the loss-making Nature’s Basket in July 2019. “It turned around in a year, after we acquired it. And then Covid happened, so we have gone through the whole recovery piece,” Goenka said.

On a consolidated basis, Spencer’s Retail posted a net loss of Rs 70 crore in the quarter ended September 30, 2023. Net loss in the year-ago period was Rs 54 crore, and in the previous quarter, Rs 64 crore. Revenue from operations in the September quarter was Rs 574 crore, down 11.6 per cent year-on-year.