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August 1, 2026
Murali K Menon, Firstpost
1 August 2026
The next time you are shopping for veggies on a quick commerce app, we’d suggest you hop onto the organic produce section and consider where those vegetables came from. Chances are, they have travelled through a supply chain pretty different from the one that bought veggies to your kitchen just five years ago. Some of that produce is supplied by Urban Farms Co., a little-known company that is rethinking food systems.
Urban Farms works with about 2,000 small farmers on the outskirts of several of India’s cities, as well as in states like Rajasthan and Maharashtra to grow vegetables using regenerative practices and supplies them to urban consumers via quick commerce and modern retail. The definition of renegenrative agriculture changes depending on who you ask, but broadly it refers to an approach that seeks to restore soil health, as opposed to conventional, chemical-intensive farming.
About 1% of global farmland is now under regenerative practices, according to a 2025 World Resources Institute study. Urban Farms, whose farmer network grows over 50 varieties of vegetables, handles around 12,000 tonnes annually and is targeting a twenty-fold jump in revenue from its current Rs 30 crore in the next five years.
That target might sound ambitious until you look at its origins. Urban Farms was founded by members of the team behind Araku Coffee, the specialty coffee brand that put Indian coffee on the global map. Both Araku Coffee and Urban Farms are backed by the Hyderabad-based Naandi Foundation, among the country’s largest, multi-sector non-profits. The NGO was set up by Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories founder, the late Kallam Anji Reddy, and counts Kris Gopalakrishnan and Anand Mahindra on its board.
The broad details of Araku Coffee’s success are well known, but the model that underpins it is much less discussed. Over two decades, the project worked with thousands of tribal farmers to promote regenerative farming practices, restore degraded land, and improve farmer incomes while building a globally recognised premium coffee brand. The same spirit animates Urban Farms. Instead of tribal farmers, it works with small farmers on the outskirts of India’s cities. Instead of a premium export crop, it is betting on everyday vegetables sold through quick commerce and modern retail. But can a model proven in a premium niche survive in the toughest, most commoditised part of Indian agriculture?
Beyond coffee
Coffee was just a conversation-starter, says Manoj Kumar, the lead architect of the Araku Coffee project and the founding CEO of the Naandi Foundation. The developmental economist says that the project proved two things. “It proved at scale that our regenerative organic agricultural science worked for 20 years in every crop, from coffee to millet, consistently season after season, without any drop in yield. And, just as importantly, that we could do world-class excellence at scale with very ordinary poor people.”
The eventual goal was improving farmer economics. “In India, 85% of farmers have less than one hectare of land,” Kumar says. “The question is: what do we do with small and marginal farmers?” Urban Farms is one answer to that question. Unlike Araku Coffee, though, it isn’t built around a single crop.
“Urban Farms is about doing a system change. We are changing food systems,” says Vikash Abraham, the company’s CEO. So, what does that mean for something as everyday as a lady finger? Before it reaches your kitchen, Urban Farms is involved in almost every stage of its journey. It supplies regenerative fertilisers to farmers, works with them through the growing season, buys back their produce, and sells it to retailers and quick commerce platforms.
Urban Farms
“We procure from the farmer at the same price as conventional produce. We do not pay a premium per kilogram because we believe profitability is about cost of cultivation versus the entire income you get from your farm,” Abraham says. In other words, with Urban Farms, farmers don’t earn more because they sell lady finger at a higher price. They earn more because regenerative farming lowers their costs while giving them an assured buyer. A typical vegetable grower could earn as much as Rs 20,000 to Rs 30,000 more per acre annually, says Abraham, with savings increasing over time. A first-season comparison conducted by the company across 56.5 acres in Wardha, Maharashtra, found that soybean yields rose 12% and total cultivation costs fell by 8%.
Spending on farm inputs dipped from ₹9,750 to ₹5,267 per acre, while profits increased from ₹12,550 to ₹19,195. The model does not rely on government subsidies and farmers pay for the inputs themselves. According to Abraham, Urban Farms doesn’t approach farmers from a moral standpoint, or talk about climate change. “We go to them with a business proposition, and the business proposition is about making profitability.”
From trial to habit
Urban Farms’ residue-free vegetables generally cost about 40% more than conventional produce, although the gap varies by crop, market prices, and platforms. Lady finger, for instance, was priced at ₹24 for a 250gm pack on Zepto in Azadpur, in north Delhi, earlier this week compared with ₹17 for conventional produce; on Blinkit, the same pack was sold at ₹35.
Quick commerce accounts for 65% of its business under the residue-free category, with modern trade and other channels making up the rest. Abraham says part of that premium reflects the cost of maintaining a separate, traceable supply chain. The company supplies Blinkit, Zepto, Swiggy, and Flipkart as well as Reliance, Jubilant, and Country Delight, among others.
Devangshu Dutta, founder of retail consultancy Third Eyesight, says that he expects demand to grow, as incomes rise and consumers become more conscious of the food they are eating. But he thinks a 40% premium may be too high for regular consumption because vegetables, unlike coffee or craft chocolate, are staples.
“You could have a premium of maybe 20% to 30%. Some products could be higher than that, but that is something that has to be managed carefully.” For category growth to accelerate, he says, the produce must become “a fixture in the consumer’s pantry, in the consumer’s kitchen, on the consumer’s plate.”
Dutta believes that quick commerce is well-suited to fresh produce because Indian households have traditionally bought vegetables frequently rather than stocking up. “The bottleneck really is having the product range that consumers will buy over a period of time again and again.” That requires farmers growing different crops across regions and climatic zones. And building a wide range of vegetables also means working with farmers and ensuring farmer retention in the system season after season. “You don’t just sign up a farmer and say he’s going to be there forever,” Dutta says.
Urban Farms says it has managed to do that so far. In May this year, Anand Mahindra posted on X that 80 to 90% of the farmers who work with the company return every season. “Not out of loyalty to a movement, but because the economics work,” he wrote, pointing to yields comparable with conventional farming, lower input costs and produce that consistently tests residue-free.
Abraham says that Urban Farms would like to work with about 100,000 farmers by 2030, and the company’s growth will depend on how quickly it can both build and nurture relationships with its partners across the country. Applying the Araku model to a far more unpredictable market won’t be easy, but if Urban Farms can keep both farmers and shoppers in the system as it grows, coffee, as Manoj Kumar said, may indeed have been just the conversation-starter.
(Published in Firstpost)
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August 1, 2026
Two decades ago, the team at the Naandi Foundation turned tribal farmers in a remote Andhra valley into some of the world’s best-paid coffee growers. Araku Coffee now sells in Paris, and the best of it goes for thousands of rupees a kilogram. Now the same team is trying to do it again — this time with everyday vegetables. Their company, Urban Farms Co., works with regenerative farmers and sells their produce on apps like Blinkit and Zepto. The bet is that what worked for premium coffee can work for staples too. But vegetables aren’t coffee. They’re cheap, everyday, and something people buy all the time. Can this really scale, and does it actually leave farmers better off?
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July 27, 2026
Vaeshnavi Kasthuril, MINT
Bengaluru, 27 Jul 2026
Over the past six years, Trent Ltd has grown its revenue more than fivefold, outpacing Titan Co. Ltd, Tata Consumer Products Ltd (TCPL) and Voltas Ltd to become the fastest-growing established company in Tata Sons’ consumer and retail portfolio.
Trent, incorporated in 1998, is the youngest among the Tata group’s four major listed consumer businesses. Voltas was incorporated in 1954, TCPL traces its origins to Tata Tea, established in 1962, while Titan was incorporated in 1984.
While Titan remains the group’s largest consumer business by revenue, Trent has overtaken Voltas and nearly caught up with TCPL.
Trent’s revenue rose to ₹20,189 crore in FY26 from ₹3,635 crore in FY20, showed Tata Sons’ FY26 annual report. In comparison, Titan’s revenue expanded 4.2 times, while TCPL and Voltas grew 2.1 times and 1.8 times, respectively. Six years ago, Trent accounted for just 8.6% of the combined revenue of the group’s four major consumer businesses. In FY26, that share has climbed to 14.1%, close to TCPL’s 14.3%.
Trent’s portfolio includes Westside and Zudio in fashion, Samoh and Burnt Toast in newer lifestyle formats, and Star in grocery retail.
Zudio effect
The growth has been driven by Trent’s aggressive expansion across value and premium fashion. Zudio has emerged as the retailer’s biggest growth engine, benefiting from rising demand for affordable fashion among middle-income consumers, while Westside has continued to strengthen its presence in the premium apparel and lifestyle segment.
Zudio has been “a phenomenal driver of revenue growth”, with the retailer aggressively expanding the format over the past few years, said Devangshu Dutta, founder of retail consulting firm Third Eyesight.
He said Trent has also benefited from a structural shift in the country’s retail landscape as consumers increasingly move from fragmented, unorganised markets to organised retail. “The conversion from informal to formal happens not so much driven by demand but by availability. So if you open a new outlet… you have something which was not there earlier, which becomes a magnet for footfall,” Dutta said.
He said that Zudio’s combination of fashion-led products and sharp pricing has helped it stand out in the crowded value apparel market.
The retailer has simultaneously expanded beyond apparel into adjacent categories such as beauty and personal care, home décor, footwear, and accessories through Westside, while also nurturing newer concepts, including Samoh, Burnt Toast, and Star.
During FY26, Trent added 289 stores, taking its total network to 1,286 outlets across 321 cities and expanding its retail footprint to more than 17.7 million sq. ft.
The company said it sees opportunities to increase store density in existing markets while expanding into new cities, particularly as demand for organized retail continues to deepen beyond the country’s largest metropolitan areas.
The next phase of growth is likely to be driven by Westside. According to media reports, Trent plans to significantly accelerate the expansion of its flagship premium fashion chain by opening up to 100 stores annually, nearly double its historical pace. The chain, which had 300 stores at the end of FY26, is expected to expand into newer geographies, including the northeastern states, while strengthening its presence in key metropolitan markets.
Dutta said macroeconomic uncertainty, including the impact of geopolitical tensions and softer employment conditions, could weigh on discretionary spending. “If there is uncertainty, then you tend to be a little bit more careful,” he said.
Dutta said that while consumer demand may fluctuate in the short term, the long-term shift towards modern retail remains firmly intact.
Noel Tata’s farewell message
The FY26 annual report also carries Noel Tata’s final message as chairman of Trent, marking the end of an era for the retailer he helped transform into one of India’s largest fashion retailers.
Tata reiterated his long-held ambition of building Trent into a platform capable of creating and scaling multiple consumer businesses rather than relying on a single retail format. “I have long believed that Trent is not intended to be defined by a single brand, but rather by a portfolio of brands,” he wrote, adding that Westside, Zudio and Star continue to have significant runway for growth.
Looking ahead, he said Trent should aspire to build Indian brands with global relevance and generate a material share of revenues from overseas markets.
He also recalled his vision, first articulated in 2023, of making Trent ten times larger in terms of revenue with commensurate profitability, noting that the company’s revenue and profitability run rate have already grown more than 2.5 times since then.
The company has not yet named a successor to Noel Tata, who is set to retire as chairman in November.
(Published in MINT)
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July 20, 2026
Kartikay Kashyap, Financial Express / Brandwagon
30 July 2026
Wendy’s first foray into India’s quick service restaurant (QSR) market in 2015 remained a non-starter. Sierra Nevada Restaurants, the then master franchisee, could not scale its retail presence beyond four conventional restaurants concentrated largely in Delhi-NCR. This limited physical availability, brand awareness and ordering frequency.
Ten years on and under a new master franchisee Rebel Foods since 2023, Wendy’s seems to have turned over a new leaf. With more than 250 stores, and ₹200 crore in revenues, the brand wants to be the one-stop destination for the younger generation where consumers come together to celebrate food, music and a sense of community. “The longer-term ambition is to expand to approximately 500 locations by 2028 through a combination of delivery kitchens and physical restaurants,” says Joy Bamania, brand head, Wendy’s India.
As a first step, Rebel Foods recently opened what it calls its “dynamic cultural flagship store” in Delhi’s vibrant student hub of Hudson Lane, GTB Nagar. The two-level youth-centric space blends food, music and anime, offering fans experiences like live rap battles, meet-and-greets, and specialised menu items like the signature Teriyaki Burger range.
“It has been designed to be livelier, more youthful and visually engaging—an Instagram-worthy space. It is a physical expression of how we want consumers to experience Wendy’s in India: bold, fun, culturally relevant and full of energy,” says Bamania.
Even before taking over Wendy’s operations Rebel Foods had been managing its delivery-only cloud kitchens since 2020 and was familiar with the brand’s DNA and what was required to mount a serious challenge in the ₹15,000-plus crore organised burger restaurants market in the country. The low capex delivery-only model has helped to improve its gross margins, but taking on established brands like McDonalds, KFC and Burger King would be a completely new ball game.
Is the latecomer up to a second bout in the ring?
New, improved
Wendy’s has at least three things going against it. It arrived late on India’s shores and couldn’t really stand apart during its last outing. “No matter how big a global brand you are, you need to stand out in the clutter,” says Devangshu Dutta, founder & CEO, Third Eyesight.
So while McDonald’s is the kid-first family restaurant, Burger King is intentionally “imperfect” and rides on humour, pop-culture moments, and viral marketing. Wendy’s, say experts, had no differentiation than just being a global brand.
Its premium pricing was another bugbear. In its first foray, Wendy’s tried to justify its higher prices saying its ingredients were better than that offered by the rest of the pack. So while the price of a Wendy’s entry level burger was ₹100, McDonald’s retailed one at half that price. “In the QSR business, you have to get your price right. There is nothing ‘premium’ in that space,” says Ankur Bisen, senior partner, The Knowledge Company. Rebel Foods addressed these problems with four fundamental shifts.
First, it used the existing technology, kitchen and supply-chain infrastructure to rapidly expand Wendy’s beyond Delhi-NCR. Second, it built a stronger and more accessible value architecture while introducing flavours suited to Indian preferences. Third, it created an omnichannel model in which cloud kitchens delivered reach and convenience, while selected dine-in restaurants built visibility and deeper brand experiences. Finally, it adopted a data-led approach to menu development, pricing, consumer feedback and operational performance.
Rebel Foods became Wendy’s master franchisee in India in 2023. At that stage, Wendy’s had approximately 90 locations across 19 cities. By March 2025, the brand had reached 200 locations across more than 50 cities, including 15 dine-in restaurants.
“The fivefold revenue growth has consequently not come from one product or campaign. It is the result of wider distribution, sharper value, continuous menu innovation, stronger operational execution and a much clearer proposition for the Indian consumer,” says Bamania.
(Published in Financial Express)
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July 13, 2026
Sowmya Ramasubramanian, Vaeshnavi Kasthuril (MINT)
Bengaluru, 13 July 2026
India’s vertical quick-commerce startups across categories like baby care, medicines and fashion, backed by venture capital heavyweights, are beginning to redefine what “quick” means.
For some, the race is no longer about cutting delivery times by a few more minutes. Instead, founders are increasingly talking about better assortment, sharper curation, stronger supply chains and healthier unit economics as the factors that will decide whether the model survives.
Baby care platform Ozi, backed by Blume Ventures and RTP Global, has settled on a roughly 60-minute delivery promise. Founder Amit Sah told Mint the company would rather optimise for “quality selection” than chase ultra-fast deliveries, arguing that customers today are looking for reliable availability and curated choices rather than insisting on receiving products in 10 minutes.
Lightspeed-backed fashion startup Slikk is pursuing a similar path. Founder Akshay Gulati said the company’s focus since inception has been building a wide catalogue rather than aggressively acquiring users.
The shift comes as the sector enters a more pragmatic phase. Quick fashion startup Blip shut down within a year of launch last June, while rival Klydo has recently pivoted its business model, raising questions about the viability of firms in every category.
The crop of vertical quick commerce startups—focused on rapid delivery within a single, specific product category—has largely emerged over the past two years, inspired by the explosive growth of grocery-focused pioneers such as Blinkit, Swiggy Instamart and IPO-bound Zepto, which have accustomed consumers to receiving groceries and everyday essentials within minutes.
Other prominent startups include Plazza for quick delivery of medicines, Instafix for mobile repairs within minutes, and Dazzl for at-home salon services.
Kalaari Capital noted in its 2025 report that quick commerce had already captured about two-thirds of online grocery orders and around 10% of India’s overall e-retail spending in 2024, transforming consumer behaviour and building the infrastructure for specialised vertical players to emerge.
“Speed was never a real moat but became a hygiene factor once every significant player could promise 10-30 minute delivery,” said Devangshu Dutta, founder and chief executive of consultancy Third Eyesight. “Assortment depth, availability, trust, and sustained price-value have been, and will remain, the true differentiation levers. For categories such as medicines and baby products, credibility and compliance outweigh saved minutes, apart from urgent purchases.”
“Unit economics can become healthier only where there’s a clear reason for frequent and repeated purchases. Groceries and medicines are repeat, low consideration categories, while fashion is high consideration, driven by fit, styling and browsing. The best quick commerce categories have low or no returns and high order frequency, whereas rapid fashion delivery faces high return rates due to product mismatch against customer expectations (sizing, fit, fabric and colour),” Dutta said.
Different categories, different playbooks
While fashion startups are investing heavily in discovery and inventory refreshes, Ozi believes the opportunity in baby care lies in curation and premiumisation.
Sah said each sub-category within baby care presents a different operational challenge. Consumables require deep availability of long-tail brands, while fashion depends on filtering products for quality rather than listing everything available. Ozi, which delivers wipes, diapers, and baby food, deliberately curates brands instead of maximising assortment, targeting parents willing to pay slightly more for trusted products.
“The customer behaviour has shifted from discovery first to search first,” Sah said, adding that shoppers today are not necessarily looking for ultra-fast delivery, but nor are they willing to wait several days. “A modern-age customer values quality. They are happy to pay an 8-10% or 12% differential, but they need quicker access to better brands and better assortment.”
Fashion startups argue that their challenge is different altogether.
Gulati said Slikk has built its business around supply rather than customer acquisition, claiming that stronger assortment has helped steadily reduce acquisition costs. The company replaces 30-40% of inventory in every dark store each month and is expanding neighbourhood by neighbourhood instead of spreading rapidly across cities.
Slikk might also consider introducing private brands for apparel, given their higher margins, Gulati said.
Bengaluru-based fast-fashion e-commerce startup Knot, which raised $5 million from 12 Flags and Kae Capital in December 2025, is investing heavily in back-end technology. Its app captures user preferences through swipe-based interactions, while its dark stores carry much wider assortments than horizontal quick commerce operators – offering a vast, multi-category collection of goods – and customise inventory based on local demand.
“We look at fashion as a data science problem and not really an intuition problem,” co-founder and chief executive officer (CEO) Archit Nanda said.
Nanda said fashion’s long-tail nature—which relies on selling small quantities of several unique products rather than depending on a few popular items – means inventory commonality across dark stores is significantly lower than grocery, requiring specialised supply chains and hyperlocal merchandising.
The profitability test
The changing strategies also reflect growing investor scrutiny of unit economics.
Slikk’s Gulati said investors continue to back the category but increasingly want proof that businesses can balance growth with profitability rather than relying on heavy customer acquisition spending. He believes execution in neighbourhood-level operations, assortment and brand partnerships will ultimately determine the winner.
Knot’s Nanda said that fashion combines high average order values with healthy margins, making the category attractive despite its complexity.
However, analysts believe that not every vertical is equally suited to the model.
“Looking ahead, horizontal cross-subsidy will work better, with established, well-capitalised players (Myntra’s M-Now, Nykaa Now) including quick delivery into an existing catalogue and logistics network rather than building it standalone. For narrow, high-trust verticals (medicines, baby care) where the value is availability and authenticity rather than impulse, and where margins can support the delivery cost, quick commerce can work,” Dutta noted.
Kalaari Capital’s 2025 report on vertical quick commerce similarly argued that specialised players will win by solving category-specific pain points, with assortment depth, customer experience, and category expertise emerging as key differentiators.
(Published in MINT)
