Written By Aditi Shrivastava & Samidha Sharma, ET Bureau

BENGALURU | NEW DELHI: In what would be one of the most significant consolidation moves in the sector, Uber Eats, the food delivery arm of the global ride-hailing platform, is in final stages of negotiations to sell its India business to rival Swiggy, three people privy to the development told ET. The deal, which is expected to close by next month, will be Swiggy’s largest acquisition till date, and Uber’s first divestment of its food business globally.

The transaction is likely to be a share swap, sources said, giving Uber about 10% stake in the Bengaluru-based company last valued at $3.3 billion.

The development is in line with Uber’s global strategy to cut down on losses as it prepares for a public offering at a possible valuation of $120-150 billion. For the ride-hailing giant, Uber Eats alone is estimated to be valued at over $20 billion. The business generated $1.5 billion in revenue globally in the first quarter of 2018, according to US-based tech news portal, The Information.

High Cash Burn

“It is prudent to be invested in Swiggy than burn capital competing for the same set of restaurants and consumers,” said a source in the know of the deal. “This should bring some rationality to the cashguzzling food-delivery market,” this person added, hinting that discounts are likely to significantly reduce post integration.

In the past year or so, both Swiggy and Gurgaon-based Zomato have been raising capital as they have gone on a tear to acquire new customers. Along with these two, the market has seen heightened discounting by Uber Eats and Ola’s Foodpanda which has led to high cash burn by these companies.

Sources said that Uber Eats had also held discussions with Zomato, but those talks fell through. In an emailed statement to ET, spokespersons for Uber and Swiggy said, “We do not comment on rumour or speculation.”

Uber Eats India racked up a cash burn of around $25 million on an average 9 million orders a month, a top executive at the firm told ET. Swiggy burns about $40-45 million a month on its food business, according to industry estimates.

The deal talks come at a time when Uber’s India rival Ola has put its food business under Foodpanda in the slow lane, and cut marketing and customer acquisition costs by two-thirds. The company is now focusing on its own private labels and cloud kitchens which include The Great Khichdi Experiment, Lovemade and FLRT brands.

“Last-mile logistics is an operations-heavy, low-margin business. In the long run, I don’t see how the market can sustain so many parallel micro-logistics networks,” said Kartik Hosanagar, professor of technology & digital business at The Wharton School.

Over the last couple of months, Uber Eats has grown in markets such as Hyderabad, Chennai and Pune. Experts say consolidation has been on the cards in the food-delivery business. “Consolidation will happen due to the thin operating margins and market acquisition costs, which will place enormous pressure on the companies to raise capital,” said Devangshu Dutta, chief executive of Third Eyesight, a specialist retail consulting firm.

In India, Uber Eats was launched in May 2017 and is currently present in 37 cities across the country. Swiggy’s largest investor, South African media and internet conglomerate Naspers, has been particularly bullish on the market potential in the Indian food delivery space.

“Food delivery is a perfect example of our strategy in action with online platform capabilities that address a large offline societal need in a high-growth market. It’s still early days, but if you look at the growth in revenue and the underlying operating metrics, it gives us real confidence in the potential here,” said Naspers CEO Bob van Dijk in a recent investor call.

Source: economictimes

Written By Editor

Ikea wants to sell you more than furniture – it wants to sell sustainable living, and that includes what you need to grow your own food.

Ikea is reported to be developing a new line of products with British industrial designer Tom Dixon, to be formally announced in May 2019 and released in stores in 2021.

The retailer has already introduced a hydroponic system to grow lettuce on your kitchen countertop, and the company’s innovation lab, Space10, experimented with a flatpack urban farm to fit in your backyard.

The collaboration with Tom Dixon would possibly to make it easier to grow plants in small spaces in city homes and to maximize the amount of food production in the smallest possible space.

With this, Ikea is jumping on to the trend of products focused on people farming in an urban environment.

Source: billionfarmers

In recent decades, the dependence on established medical disciplines has begun to be challenged. There is the oft-quoted dictum that healthcare sector tends to illness rather than health. Another saying goes that some of the food you eat keeps you in good health, but most of what you eat keeps your doctor in good health. With a gap emerging between wellness-seekers and the healthcare sector, so-called “alternative” options are stepping in.

Some of these alternatives actually existed as well-structured and well-documented traditional medical practices for thousands of years before the introduction of more recent Western medical disciplines. This includes India’s Siddha system and Ayurved (literally, “science of life”), which certainly don’t deserve being relegated to an “alternative” footnote. Ayurved is also said to have influenced medicine in China over a millennium ago, through the translation of Indian medical texts into Chinese.

Other than these, there are also more recent inventions riding the “wellness” buzzword. These may draw from the traditional systems and texts, or be built upon new pharmaceutical or nutraceutical formulations. Broader wellness regimens – much like Ayurved and Siddha – blend two or more elements from the following basket: food choices and restrictions, minerals, extracts and supplements, physical exercise and perhaps some form of meditative practices. Wellness, thus, is often characterised by a mix-and-match based on individual choices and conveniences, spiked with celebrity influences.

A key premise driving the wellness sector is that modern medicine depends too heavily on attacking specific issues with single chemicals (drugs) or combinations of single chemicals that are either isolated or synthesised in laboratories, and that it ignores the diversity and complexity of factors contributing to health and well-being. The second major premise for many wellness practitioners (though not all!) is that, provided the right conditions, the body can heal itself. For the consumer the reasons for the surge in demand for traditional wellness solutions include escalating costs of conventional health care, the adverse effects of allopathic drugs, and increasing lifestyle disorders.

After food, wellness has turned into possibly one of the largest consumer industries on the planet. Global pharmaceutical sales are estimated at over US$ 1.1 trillion. In contrast, according to the Global Wellness Institute, the wellness market dwarfs this, estimated at US$ 3.7 trillion (2015). This figure includes a vast range of services such as beauty and anti-ageing, nutrition and weight loss, wellness tourism, fitness and mind-body, preventative and personalized medicine, wellness lifestyle real estate, spa industry, thermal/mineral springs, and workplace wellness. Within this, the so-called “Complementary and Alternative Medicine” is estimated to be about US$200 billion.

There are several reasons why “complementary and alternative medicine” sales are not yet larger. Rooted in economically backward countries such as India, these have been seen as outdated, less effective and even unscientific. In India, the home of Siddha and Ayurved, apart from individual practitioners, several companies such as Baidyanath, Dabur, Himalaya and others were active in the market for decades, but were usually seen as stodgy and products of need, and usually limited to people of the older generations and rural populations. In the West they typically attracted a fringe customer base, or were a last resort for patients who did not find a solution for their specific problem in modern allopathy and hospitals.

However, through the 1970s Ayurved gained in prominence in the West, riding on the New Age movement. Gradually, in recent decades proponents turned to modern production techniques, slick packaging and up-to-date marketing, and even local cultivation in the West of medicinal plants taken from India.

As wellness demonstrated an increasingly profitable vector in the West, Indian entrepreneurs, too, have taken note of this opportunity. Perhaps Shahnaz Husain was one of the earliest movers in the beauty segment, followed by Biotique in the early-1990s that developed a brand driven not just by a specific need but by desire and an approach that was distinctly anti-commodity, the characteristics of any successful brand. Others followed, including FMCG companies such as the multinational giant Unilever. The last decade-and-a-half has also brought the phenomenon called Patanjali, a brand that began with Ayurvedic products and grew into an FMCG and packaged food-empire faster than any other brand before! While a few giants have emerged, the market is still evolving, allowing other brands to develop, whether as standalone names or as extensions of spiritual and holistic healing foundations, such as Sri Sri Tattva, Isha Arogya and others.

An absolutely critical driver of this growth in the Indian market now is the generation that has grown up during the last 25-30 years. It is a class that is driven by choice and modern consumerism, but that also wishes to reconnect with its spiritual and cultural roots. This group is aware of global trends but takes pride in home-grown successes. It is comfortable blending global branded sportswear with yoga or using an Indian ayurvedic treatment alongside an international beauty product.

Of course, there is a faddish dimension to the wellness phenomenon, and it is open to exploitation by poor or ineffective products, non-standard and unscientific treatments, entirely outrageous efficacy claims, and price-gouging.

To remain on course and strengthen, the wellness movement will need structured scientific assessment and development at a larger scale, a move that will need both industry and government to work closely together. Traditional texts would need to be recast in modern scientific frameworks, supported by robust testing and validation. Education needs to be strengthened, as does the use of technology.

However the industry and the government move, from the consumer’s point-of-view the juggernaut is now rolling.

(An edited version of this piece was published in Brand Wagon, Financial Express.)

This is a recording of a short, candid talk by Devangshu Dutta (chief executive, Third Eyesight) at the ASSOCHAM’s 8th Global Food Processing Summit in New Delhi, India.

He touched upon the inherent conflicts in the food supply chain we need to be aware of before formulating policies and practices, and strongly urged everyone to look at food security from the point of view of sustainability and risk-management. (Transcript below.)

As we all know, whoever’s been following the news, there’s all this buzz around FDI into retail being allowed, not only for physical retail but also for e-commerce companies, and there are two very strong sets of drivers. On the one hand is the likes of Walmart and Tesco and people who want to actually set up food retail. and you know food is the largest consumption in our basket of consumer products, so they obviously want to tap into that demand. The second side is Amazon and the likes of it where again you know there are no barriers in terms of location, you are buying on the net, tapping into a consumer who’s looking for convenience, and there you need to actually service that demand with food and grocery which is packaged, so there is obviously a very strong push a very strong lobby for that to happen. At the same time there’s a very strong lobby against that because there are domestic retailers who invested a lot of money over the last maybe 10-15 years in setting up a lot of retail stores. In the recent years there have been a few e-commerce companies that have come up as well with domestic and foreign capital. So there is this conflict.

In this whole ecosystem of food production and supply and retail there are some fundamental conflicts that we need to be aware of, before we get into any kind of thinking about what should be done with the sector.

First of all is foreign vs. Indian; this is a conflict which is there the world over, and I think we will see that increase in Europe, in the US, and in other places. You know, “local versus foreign” is a conflict which we will keep seeing. I think we have moved a little bit away from that within, not only this government’s regime but also the earlier government’s regime, where we started to welcome foreigners back into the country and said, “let’s do trade together”.  I think it’s important to keep it in mind that local interests will always always be take predominance over foreign interests. If any government comes in and says, “I will give foreign interests precedence”, it’s going to not be there in power the next time, so that’s something which is to be kept in mind.

The second is this is a conflict between large and small…large retailers versus small retailers. A Reliance had to close shops in Uttar Pradesh, had to close shops in Kerala because they were impacting small retailers. So it’s not just about Walmart impacting small retailers, it’s also about the large Indian companies impacting smaller companies.

The third conflict is between traditional and modern, and this is happening again even in farming. Indian farmers tend to follow traditional practices, there are fragmented land holdings, and then you have modern entrepreneurial farmers, you have cooperatives which are adopting different techniques, and there is a conflict which happens at that level as well. At the local level it can get hugely political and then it starts raising barriers. So if you talk about the food supply chain, it’s not a simple thing to deal with.

Fourthly, the biggest biggest conflict – and that’s not really a conflict outright because these are people who are working together – but there are differences of interests and, therefore, there are conflicts…that is between retailer, supplier and the farmer, the interests are not aligned. A retailer wants lower prices, a supplier wants even lower prices, but the farmer wants higher yield and higher prices, so that conflict, just something on account of price and commercial terms and various other things, is bound to create friction in that supply chain.

Having understood that, I think we need to also acknowledge the fact that retailers are unlikely to invest in the supply chain and in farming. Amazon is not going to set up food processing. Amazon is not going to set up farms which are contract farming. Let’s face it, even Future Group hasn’t. Future Group has set up a food park. Future Group has taken over companies which are in food production companies but Future Group has has not set up, ground-up, contract farming. They’ve tried but it’s not their core competence, it’s not even their core interest. Reliance has done a little bit, ITC has done a few things but it’s not something which is fundamentally their business. They’re retailers, that’s what drives them, so what they can do is they can create an ecosystem.

Let’s take the example of McDonald’s or a Pizza Hut or say a Domino’s. These are foreign quick service restaurants which have come into the country. A McDonald’s had to actually build its supply chain from scratch to get the potato fries, to get the burgers done, to get the patties done and they created an ecosystem, in some cases they invested or co-invested with Indian partners, but in most cases they encouraged Indian partners to talk to their partners from Europe, US etc.

When we talk about people like Future Group, it has done a lot in being a platform for Indian companies to come on board and sometimes international companies as well. They’re a platform for them to launch and grow their business. So what the retailer can do is create the ecosystem, create the demand pipeline. Beyond that it is up to the food producer, it is up to the farmer, to take that opportunity and move on. It’s not for the retailer to handhold from scratch all the way to selling on the shelves.

In terms of the practices that we need to adopt I’d like to say this, that while we keep talking about international standards, food is a very local thing. We may be going into a world where 50 years down the line all of us will be having a white-gray powder which has no flavour and that’s what the future of food…I hope not!…The fact is the food is a very local thing because of tastes, because of cultures, because of the environment that you are in. And we are actually losing a lot. People who are here from farming, if you look back not, even very far – maybe 20-25 years – certainly, if you look back 50 years, what was being farmed we’ve lost probably 30-40 percent of that produce, because there is no demand, because it is difficult to grow, because it’s seasonal, because it is difficult to process,  difficult to sell. If you go to the sabziwala today versus if we went to the sabziwala 10 years ago, you will find that the variety of produce has actually diminished. So while we are talking about food processing, what is happening is…and I’d like to mention this…You know, sometimes we come to conferences like this and we run our businesses, we run with a split personality. We do what is convenient for the business, we do what is good for the business in terms of cost, in terms of ease of processing, in terms of ease of selling etc. When it comes to us as consumers, we want fresh, we want variety, we want flavor, we want colour, we want all of it. Why do we have the split personality? Why can’t we actually combine the two and do what is right for us as consumers, our children as consumers, the environment, and the future as well?

Sustainability is should be a big driver and we forget that the kind of food processing which is going on right now, by and large the kind of plants which are being put up, are based on technology which was developed in North America and Europe between 1900 and say 1960-70. That’s been the most wasteful part of the last century in terms of energy, in terms of water, in terms of labour, in terms of anything. It’s resource intensive. Now imagine even if 20% of India – over 200 million people – started to live and depend on that kind of a lifestyle and that kind of an industrial structure! This country will be finished, certainly! The world would be finished! We cannot do that, so we’ve got to do stuff which is good for us as consumers, the environment as a whole, and good for the business. It can’t just be one. We cannot be uni-dimensional in our thinking.

Last point: I think diversity is a very, very important part of the food supply chain and diversity means that there are “many”. We tend to look at large companies as being the standard and, therefore, large being good. But the fact is that if you take food which is an integral part of our lives…You cannot live without air, you can live without food and water for a few days, you can’t survive. You can live without clothes for your entire life.

If let’s say the food supply chain and even the processing, the acquisition and everything else, if it gets consolidated beyond a certain point it becomes extremely vulnerable. Anybody who’s looked at financial services risk management or any any kind of risk assessment, you would know that it is good to have a diversified basket. From the point-of-view of farming, from the point-of-view of manufacturing, from the point-of-view of retail, consolidation beyond a certain point is actually detrimental to quality and to safety. So if you’re looking at food safety, if you’re looking at sustainability, we need to actually encourage many, many, many entrepreneurs, many small businesses.

For that…I don’t know if anybody is there from the government sitting in this audience…but Make in India will only happen if we make it easier. Today all of us who are in business know that India is one of the most hostile environments to do business of any sort. It does not matter whether you are in manufacturing, whether you’re a truck driver, whether you are running a consulting business. With all the regulations…we don’t lack regulation, there’s too much regulation…we don’t have an environment where it is easy to do business. If that can happen we will find that we will have an extremely diverse and vibrant ecosystem which will grow and we can actually be the standard, the international standard which can be followed by everybody else. I think what we should do is try and get the government to work in that direction. If we can do that, if that’s one outcome we can achieve out of this conference I’ll be really, really, really happy.

Thank you so much!

When American fast food standard bearers McDonald’s and Domino’s Pizza stepped into India in the mid-1990s, the market was just ripe enough for take-off.

McDonald’s and later Domino’s Pizza can be credited with not just growing the consumer appetite for fast food but also for fostering an entire food service ecosystem, including fresh produce, baked goods, sauces and condiments, and cold chain technology.

India has been typically difficult for business models driven by scale, replicability and predictability. The customer is price sensitive, operating costs are high and non-compliance of business standards is a frequent occurrence. In this environment, these brands have reinvented the meaning of meals, snacks and treats.

Their growth has set the stage for other international players and also set business aspirational standards for Indian food entrepreneurs and conglomerates alike.

Product experimentation has also been an important part of their success; it keeps excitement in the brand alive and help improve footfall. However, how far a product sustains and whether it becomes a menu staple can’t be predicted accurately. New products also need significant investment in both supply chain and front-of-house changes in standardisation-oriented QSRs, so the new product launch cannot be undertaken lightly. This is one reason these successful QSR formats don’t overhaul their menus drastically but make changes incrementally.

For these market leaders, future scale and deeper penetration is only feasible with higher visit frequency. For growth in middle-income India, they need to become a significantly cost-competitive option to be seen as more than a ‘treat’ or celebration destination.

So, while both McDonald’s and Domino’s Pizza have invested significantly in Indian flavours and menu offerings, perhaps it’s also best for them to reconcile with the fact that there will be a significant part of the consumer’s heart, stomach and wallet that will remain dedicated to indigenous offerings.

In a global environment that’s turning hostile to fast food, India isn’t a quick-fix growth market, but it’s certainly one to stay invested in, for the longer term.

And I have no doubt that as much as these companies aim to change India, over time India will also change them.

(Also published in Brand Wagon, The Financial Express)