CURRYIT: Redefining Indian Home Cooking, Replacing 40 Years of Ready-to-Cook Legacy like MTR and Mother's Recipe

In an exclusive conversation with Nischal Kandula & Richa Sharma, Co-Founders of CURRYiT, we explore the brand’s incredible journey, marked by innovation, consumer-centric strategies, and impressive growth milestones. From pioneering the 15-minute cooking solution to achieving significant market presence through quick commerce platforms, CURRYiT is transforming the way India cooks at home.

1. CURRYiT has shown remarkable growth over the years. Could you share the specific numbers and percentage increases, especially focusing on the 360% growth based on August MRR 2024 compared to 2023? How has this impacted your overall business performance?

In April 2024 we went LIVE on 2 Q commerce platforms across select metro cities- Blinkit & Swiggy Insta mart. By August, the revenue contribution from these Q Comm platforms was huge- the impetus it provided and the scale/distribution was huge. We have been selling over 50,000+ products on these platforms- leading to greater business performance, better economies of scale and massive brand building through product trails

2. You mentioned that 27% of your website sales are from repeat customers. How do you ensure customer retention and what strategies have you implemented to keep that percentage consistently high?

We believe customer retention is directly proportional to the customer experience of product quality, product availability and brand recall. We work on these 3 aspects very closely by mapping customer journey, deeply understanding their needs & pain points and then aligning our products to their needs. Every step in the journey of product creation to distribution is taken keeping in mind customer delight.

We stay connected with consumers, do a lot of offline activations & samplings, call them personally (as founders we do this ourself every week), email communications on latest trends, recipes and hacks. On social media, we try to create content that adds value to the customer/viewer and not just push products.

3. With over 200,000 estimated customers to date, what are some key consumer insights you’ve gathered, and how have they influenced product innovation at CURRYiT?

 India wants to cook but

i.    Limited time for cooking with more women joining workforce

ii.    78% mention cutting/chopping as the most time consuming

iii.    38% want choices to break the monotony of home food

iv.    Products available in market loaded with preservatives & harmful additives

v.    consumers today have very little time to cook and want variety in home food

Keeping the above in mind, we launched CURRYiT with a vision to build a 100% clean food brand on a mission to make Indian cooking delicious, quick and convenient. Our products promise:

vi.    Convenience- 

o    15-mins to cook any dish

o    saves 80% cooking time 

o    no cutting, chopping or expertise needed

o    delicious taste everytime

vii.    original taste & recipes made with 100% fresh ingredients and locally sourced spices

viii.    We don’t add any preservatives, vinegar or artificial additives

ix.    Largest range of cooking pastes in India

4. Though CURRYiT doesn’t currently have physical stores across India, do you have any plans to enter the offline market? If so, what are your thoughts on potential investments per store and scaling offline?

•    Yes absolutely. While we are available in select modern trade stores in Delhi NCR, we would look at expanding our retail presence in the next phase of growth & distribution

•    This will require investment both in terms of capital as well as resources

5. Your revenue trajectory has been impressive, with a growth from 60 lakhs in 2022 to an estimated 7 crore in 2024. What factors have contributed to this rapid growth, and what challenges did you face during this scale-up?

•    New product range- everyday cooking pastes like ginger garlic paste, tomato puree etc

•    Availability on Q commerce

•    Leverage from brand recall over the last 2 years 

6. You’ve built a solid distribution network across various platforms, from quick commerce platforms like blinkit and Swiggy Insta mart to retail stores like Nature's Basket. How do you ensure consistent quality and timely delivery across such diverse channels?

•    We own our manufacturing completely. From recipes to the complete product, everything is in house. This ensures great control on quality as we have very strict SOPs for each product – hence quality control

•    We follow 20+ steps to ensure safety, hygiene and consistent quality 

•    Even on the supplier/vendor side- SOPs, batch control, process control, internal QC/QA, weekly audits, corrective action, preventive action, customer feedback analysis, training – all these steps are done by us

•    Since our manufacturing is inhouse- we have great control on inventory, which means lower inventory risk & better delivery control for distribution across touch points

7. With future plans to expand your distribution network and launch new products and categories, can you give us a sneak peek into any upcoming launches? How will these new products further redefine Indian home cooking?

•    We will be expanding into different categories in recent future- categories that will align with our vision to provide 100% clean food products that make Indian cooking delicious, quick and convenient