FreshToHome to beef up offline stores in city to 10, set up local factory

Kadavil, the CEO of the company, is a serial entrepreneur and has dabbled in several tech-based ventures (including Zynga, the creator of Farmville). He tells us, “This venture was primarily kicked off to satisfy my craving for fresh fish (read sardines). I also wanted to offer people meat and seafood that were free of chemicals. Today, the company has become one of the largest online providers of fresh fish and meat (chicken and mutton) in the country.”

FTH clocked Rs 200 cr in revenue and it executes over 14,000 orders per day, clearing about 20 tonnes of fish and meat every day. Kadavil says, “The fishing business in India is worth Rs 3 lakh crore, which is 1 per cent of India’s GDP. At the same time, the market is extremely fragmented. In fact, a chunk of Chennai’s need for fish is catered to by harbours outside the district, purely on account of the quantum of the demand. And preservation of fish becomes an issue here – as ammonia and formalin are some of the compounds usedas preservatives.”

The enterprise is also employing advanced technologies like AI and machine learning as part of streamlining its procurement and supply chain logistics. Kadavil says, “During the trading and auctioning process, fishermen bid with us electronically using an app, which we have devised for them. It uses a simple image-based format with the rates for the fish – with which the fishermen can easily trade with us.”

“We are now moving to a sophisticated algorithm where the app can use machine learning to detect the type of fish, using image recognition. We get as many as 10,000 price bids every day – turning it essentially into a stock exchange for fish or perishable goods.” FTH also does massive amounts of scale farming, like in Alleppey where there is a 1,000 tonne production facility leased to farmers, under a buy-back scheme.

The company currently serves 60,000 orders a month in Chennai, which happens to be one of its top markets. As part of its expansion here, it plans to expand its offline stores here. Currently it has a total of seven offline units across India of which three are in Chennai. The number of city outlets will hit 10 in the next three months. It also plans on setting up 50 offline stores pan-India over the next one year. He adds, ‘‘We are opening a large factory here at an outlay of Rs 2-3 cr and it will employ as many as 500 people. We are about $30 mn in sales now, and we expect to touch the $100 mn mark revenue wise in the next 18 months.”