How ‘the neighbourhood meat store’ is transforming India’s meat retail

Bangalore: For a booming industry valued at US$44 billion with a compounded annual growth of 10%, India’s meat businesses have conventionally failed to make the grade in delivering a delightful customer experience. However, that’s changing with evolving customer preferences and behaviours, particularly during the pandemic.

“As customers get increasingly conscious about the quality of meat and convenience of shopping, trusted meat brands have taken a significant yet small step - given the size of the unorganised market - towards replacing traditional meat shops as the preferred option,” said Narendra Pasuparthy, Founder & CEO of Nandu’s, a leading hyperlocal and omnichannel meat retail brand, strategically positioned as ‘the neighbourhood meat store’.

The Bengaluru-based brand, with 50 retail outlets across the city, has aggressive, pan-India expansion plans. “By March 2022, we will be launching 125 outlets across new markets in Hyderabad, Chennai, Mumbai, Pune, Delhi, and Kerala. By 2025, the plan is to have 600 Nandu’s outlets across India,” informed Narendra.

Investment opportunities

Driven by shifting consumer preferences in meat retail, investors are showing renewed interest in the sector. Nandu’s - the retail arm of Nanda Group, a INR-500 crore pioneering company in poultry farming - is self-funded and in talks with potential investors. Nandu’s plan is to raise adequate funds to fuel the company’s growth and fulfill its vision of becoming “India’s fastest growing and largest omnichannel meat brand”.

According to a recent report by India Brand Equity Foundation (IBEF), online retail penetration in India is expected to grow to 10.7% in the next four years from less than 5% in 2019. The pandemic has further accelerated the adoption of online retail during the last year.

“Currently, we offer home delivery services via our e-commerce website, app, call centre orders as well as e-commerce marketplaces, and we have seen a significant increase in our online sales this past year. While online retail offers exciting opportunities for growth, it is certainly not the only channel for Nandu’s. We are looking at an omnichannel growth strategy that caters to diverse sections of the Indian consumers,” said the entrepreneur, who started Nandu’s in 2017 with the aim to make fresh, healthy, high-quality meat and meat products accessible for all Indians.

Omnichannel approach

Over 80% of Indian consumers buy meat from local markets. However, the pandemic has prompted an increasing number of consumers to make the move from local butchery shops to trusted brands – those operating in the online space as well as offline space.

Omnichannel brands such as Nandu’s are leveraging the advantages of catering to meat consumers who may not yet have embraced e-commerce, particularly when it comes to ordering meat. “Hyperlocal presence plays a strategic role in delivering an impactful experience that aids overall growth and sales across channels. It has helped us cater to our ever-growing clientele - via our retail stores, ecommerce website and app, as well as our call centres,” noted Narendra.

Incidentally, Nandu’s is the only omnichannel farm-to-fork player in Karnataka with a hyperlocal presence and fully-integrated operations. From hatcheries, feed mills, breeding farms, and broiler farms to processing centre, food factory, cold chain infrastructure and retail stores, Nandu’s has complete ownership of the farm-to-fork processes. “We also have the technology that gives us 100% traceability across the supply chain. It has been a catalyst that has helped us, as poultry farmers, to take our produce directly to end consumers,” he added.

Holistic growth

The Covid-19 pandemic has not only seen an upsurge in Indian consumers making a conscious choice of buying from trusted brands that vouch for high standards of hygiene, health and safety of their products and services, but also brands that offer a delightful shopping experience. And that’s great news for a category that has notoriously offered one of the most underserved retail experiences in India.

Today meat retailers, Narendra agreed, need to offer an engaging experience that delivers more than just the product. “The key to success is to be a customer-centric brand that is tuned in to shifting tastes and preferences of consumers. For instance, Nandu’s is the first meat retail brand in India to conduct mystery audits in order to gain valuable insights into our customer experience. Based on those insights, we launched a unique customer loyalty program offering repeat buyers a host of rewards and benefits – something that was unheard of in the meat retail category,” he explained.

Based on customer demand for convenient and safe home-cooked food options, Nandu’s launched ready-to-cook (RTC) Biryanis – Nandu’s Nawabi Chicken Dum Biryani and Nandu’s Donne Chicken Biryani – amidst the pandemic. The brand also recorded a significant surge in consumer demand for other RTC products, such as chicken 65 and butter chicken masala.

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Now, the brand is all set to tap into the “huge market opportunity in the seafood retail sector” by expanding its product portfolio to include fresh fish and seafood across all stores and online channels. “We see the current scenario presenting us with tremendous opportunities to transform the meat retail landscape in India,” admitted the man with ambitious plans.