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INTERVIEW

“We have grown consistently at 25%”

Monday, 29 August, 2016, 08 : 00 AM [IST]

Bengaluru-based health food start-up Jiyo Natural is in the business of providing healthy, wholesome and nutritionally-balanced meals to people at their workplaces or homes for the last two years. The company has two flagship products: Jiyo Health, a wholesome, calorie counted, chemical-free, cooked in a scientifically healthy manner meal, and Jiyo Manage, a personalised meal option. While the on-demand food sector has constraints in terms of reach, logistics and customer acquisition and has to invest significantly in building kitchens and customer acquisition, Jiyo Natural is in a different space thus maintaining consistent growth. Jayas Damodaran, MD, Jiyo Natural Pvt Ltd, elaborates further in an email interaction with Nandita Vijay. Excerpts:

How would you describe the food start-up scenario in India?
The on-demand direct to consumer food business has its limitations in terms of unit economics and predictability of revenues. Logistics and customer response are also challenges in this space. Now Jiyo Natural does not in any way fall into that market. Our focus on health besides making the products available to companies for their employees is a different market altogether as players are few and is a growing one.

What are the key trends in the food start-up sector? Comment on the competition.
The on-demand food sector has constraints in terms of reach, logistics and customer acquisition. The players in this sector have to invest significantly in building kitchens (asset-heavy) and in customer acquisition, something which only a few will be able to manage and be successful. However, in the space that Jiyo Natural is in, we can be asset-light and still grow our business with minimum customer acquisition and logistics costs. There are few players in this space and actually none with the focus on food as we have.

What are the issues impeding the growth of this sector?
In the market that Jiyo Natural is in, the challenges have been the pricing levels that consumers are willing to pay on a daily basis for healthy food. Our marketing efforts have been directed to create the awareness and acceptance on the importance of healthy food both for the employee as well as to the employer. With the healthy food from Jiyo Natural, the employee is able to remain healthy, prevent any ailments, while the employer is able to increase productivity of its employees and thereby growing the overall output of their businesses.

How is your company faring and what is the response?
Jiyo Natural has been in the business of providing healthy food to corporate customers for the last two years now. The model of reaching out to consumers through corporate companies and through health care partners has proved quite successful. We have grown consistently at 25% month-on-month for the last six months. The customer response has been quite good. However, the constraint has been on the capacity front.

How are you able to sustain 2,000 meals a day?
One of the advantages of the B2B2C way of business is the subscription model. This helps in predictable revenue. We have not only been able to sustain the 2,000 plus meals a day run rate, but have been able to grow steadily.

With the acquisition of a leading food delivery company: Sangeetha Aahar, our capacity has been more than doubled. The number of meals per day will be over 3,500 in May-June.

What are the meal options for a balanced meal that is wholesome, calorie-counted, chemical- free and cooked in a scientifically healthy manner?
Our customers today request for a range of products which include breakfast, lunch, snacks and dinner. The meals are part of our Jiyo Health range which are balanced, nutritious and prepared in a scientifically healthy manner.

Customers also have been preferring varied cuisines like Continental and Chinese in some cases. Some of the customers order the same healthy food for events like cricket matches, yoga sessions and board meetings. We also have been providing special meals like Slim Trim, Summer Coolers and Dia Care packs.

How do the consumers know about the calories consumed?
We offer calorie and nutrient details with every meal that we deliver. The packed meals are calorie counted and the consumer has fairly accurate idea of the consumer calories as well as amount of carbs, proteins, fibre and so on.

In the cases where meals are served in a bulk format, where consumers serve themselves, we mention the nutrient and calorie details on a per serving basis, leaving it to the consumer to decide.

What is the response to personalised meal options? Are such meals more expensive than the others?
The personalised meal options have been our specialisation. Under the Jiyo Manage range, we have also started offering meals meant to manage specific health conditions as pre-packed meals. This has a wide acceptance in the market.

We are also working with some leading health care providers to offer personalised meal options to their patients post-discharge. This may be in “ready-to-eat” or “ready-to-cook” formats. The personalised meals are 30-40% more expensive than similar standardised meals.

How receptive are private equity and venture capitalists to this business model?
In a market that is quite cautious for the direct to consumer food tech sector, PE and VCs have shown good interest when it comes to the B2B2C subscription-based healthy food business model. Our positioning as a health company that is focussed on using food and nutrition to help consumers prevent ailments or to manage ailments has been quite attractive.

Provide funding details. Going forward, what are the expansion and funding options envisaged?
We had got funded by Indian Angel Network in October 2015. The second tranche of funds has just come in. Going forward, we will be looking for the next round - which will be used to take us to national level with operations to be started in at least four other cities. It is an undisclosed amount when they got funded by Indian Angel Network. Going forward, the brand is looking at around $3-5 million for expansion into other cities as well as for new products.

How easy is it to get the manpower like dieticians and delivery boys for a start-up business?
Unlike the on-demand B2C model, where each meal has to be delivered individually, Jiyo Natural delivers meals in good quantities to each customer location, thereby eliminating the need for a large number of delivery boys. It has, therefore, not been a challenge for us to recruit and retain a good team of required delivery boys. As far as dieticians go, we have found most of them quite keen to work in a healthy food company like ours and therefore has not been difficult to recruit and retain such good staff.