From the Farm to your Fork: How did FreshToHome manage to make its place in the middleman dominated insurmountable meat market.

• ByStartupStory     |    December 13, 2021

Stemming from the desire to eat “100% fresh, 0% chemical” induced fish after his favorite source had to halt operation, the successful journey of FreshToHome made its first leap. “It was trying to solve my own problem that is the genesis of the company” says CEO and co-founder of FreshToHome, Shan Kadavil. In its upcoming years, FreshToHome will go on to build its own vertically integrated e-commerce setup, glued perfectly by the magic wand of technology while keeping both ends of its spectrum (farm to fork), feeling satisfied. Starting with the fish industry, FreshToHome eventually ventured into the poultry industry as well.

The men behind the startup

Former customer turned partner cum co-founder, Shan Kadavil was working as a software engineer for the online gaming industry Zynga from 2009 to 2015, best known for the Facebook linked internet game, Farmville. Working at the hub of techno city Bangalore, Mr. Kadavil had a special appetite for fish. Very particular about the freshness of the fish he consumes and wary about various contaminants that swarm the fish market, Mr. Kadavil became a devout customer of “Sea to Home”, an offline organisation run by Mathew Joseph that ran a business of delivering fresh residue-free fish from the harbours of Kochi to the customers of Bangalore and Delhi.

However, after a while Mr. Joseph got the short end of the stick and had to halt its operations. This made Mr. Kadavil a disappointed customer and like every curious entrepreneur he went looking for the man behind his favorite fish source. “While Mathew was unhappy, I was unhappier, as I couldn’t get good fish. Starting FreshtoHome wasn’t just about the market size or opportunity, it was a purely selfish reason for the need for good fish.” Thereby, “Sea to Home” became “FreshToHome ”. Mr. Kadavil got Mr. Joseph onboard in a joint venture. What “Sea to Home ” lacked or came short in handling a large operation, Mr. Kadavil’s lifelong knowledge in the software industry became the glue in the success of FreshToHome. Then came onboard its six other co-founders, BM Tambakad, Jayesh Jose, Jaleel PA, Firoz Vellakat, Suresh Parameshwaran and Nilkamal Malakar who were assigned responsibilities of their own specific operations.

The end-to-end operation.

Since bringing Mathew Joseph onboard in 2015, Shan Kadavil became an angel investor in their venture.  “There are essentially three things that every entrepreneur must look at. First, How large is the market?, Second, the unmet needs and Thirdly, the unfair advantage.”- Mr. Kadavil said in an interview. The fish and the meat market in India is a whooping $94 billion industry. However, it is a largely unorganised and fragmented sector. The whole process, from buying from the producer to the end consumer, involves low leverage of the farmer/fisherman, low quality products due to added contaminants by the middlemen(which usually involves passing through more than two middlemen), and the long delay in shipment or unhealthy environment at the wet markets, leaving both the producer and the consumer unhappy.

FreshToHome has a viable back-end where they designed a virtual app that many sellers download on their phones. Usually, after gathering their produce from 4AM to 7AM, in the harbours of Kochi, the fishermen auction their produce to be carried to the market. FreshToHome’s app built a network of business in 125 harbours where the fishermen that possess the app can virtually auction their stock by selecting the fish and setting the rate in which they want to sell. According to Mr. Kadavil, the fishermen usually get a 20% higher value for their stock selling to FreshToHome buyers as opposed to the price set by the local market.

After collecting the stock, the around the clock cold-chain enabled by FreshToHome’s AI and IoT platforms keeps the stock within a temperature of 0-4 degree celsius, cutting out the excess middlemen and delivers the order to the end consumer within 24 to 36hrs. A third party also tests the products for 120 different antibodies whose results are also provided in the app for the public.

FreshToHome also enables farmers with fish-feed and chicken-feed and invests in helping them with micro-capitals.

What are the USPs(Unique Selling Points)?

“100% fresh,0% chemical” This message has worked very well for the company in gaining the market share, especially since they follow up on the guarantee and provide lab test results on their end. The lab test details done on the meat are displayed in the app for the consumer’s benefit. This, coupled with the faster home delivery with prices similar to the local market prices have pushed the company to arguably the biggest vertically integrated e-commerce company for fish and meat. Since the Covid Pandemic, the hesitancy of consumers to step into a wet market buzzing with crowds and flies has been a major boon for the company. The company has grown 2.5 times its pre-pandemic levels. FreshToHome delivers about 10 to 15 lakhs orders per month and supplies about 23,000 tons of fish and meat per year.

Moreover, the gamification of the app where the customers are provided with various games based on prediction where they can unlock features to attain certain benefits, have yielded positive results. Mr. Kadavil claims 92 to 93% retention along with 60% of the customer base arriving at the app from word of mouth.

What do the numbers show?

FreshToHome has raised $154 million in funding till date. In 2020, it had raised $121 million in Series C round led by Investment Corporation of Dubai, which is the principal investment arm of the local government, Investcorp, Ascent Capital, the US government’s development finance institution (DFC) and the Allana Group. It is present in 56 cities and towns including Mumbai, Delhi, Chennai, Bangalore and also sells its products in UAE. Claiming an revenue of 1000crore per annum it processes about 15 to 20 lakhs orders a month.  

FreshToHome competes in the market with Licious, BigBasket, and smaller startups including ZappFresh, TenderCuts along with the traditional wet market.

“We see offline as a big enabler for our online revenue.”- Mr. Kadavil. FreshToHome is planning a rapid expansion to add 70 outlets by the end of this year to take its offline store count above 100 across the country. To add to that, a major player in the UAE, FreshToHome is planning to expand its business in the GCC (Gulf Cooperation Council) countries. 

“Indians have a culture of cooking their food to high temperatures”. Mr Kadavil wants to educate the people about the toxins that still remain in their food even when cooked to high temperatures, let alone the various antibiotics and contaminants that are added to their supply by the traditional middlemen. He hopes that FreshToHome will be able to encourage a healthy and contaminant-free meat and fish industry culture in India. “100% Fresh, 0% Chemicals”.

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