?iD Fresh Food to launch two new products by June 2017

Helion Venture Partners-backed iD Fresh Food India Pvt. Ltd is working to expand its product offering. It is planning to launch two new types of ready-to-cook batter in the coming months. The company also aims at generating Rs 1,000 Crore revenue by 2020 with exports to the US and the UK markets.

P.C. Musthafa, co-founder and chief executive, iD Fresh Food. said, “We’re launching vada batter in the market in the next three months. We’re also looking at ragi dosa and idli batter.”

The firm, with its ragi doasa and idli batter,will be focusing on to an ongoing emergence of ragi as an alternative food and part of a growing health-food movement worldwide.

iD Fresh Food, which has its headquarters in Bengaluru, is also experimenting with wet sambhar and chutney pre-mixes. Earlier, iD Fresh Food had launched traditional tomato and coriander chutneys, but the products didnt’t worked out too well. Hence, the company withdrew those products from the market six months ago.

Musthafa said ,”Customers were not used to paying for chutney since restaurants typically give it free along with idlis, vadas and dosas. Hence, for the pre-mixes, we may experiment with combo packs along with their regular batter.”

Harminder Sahni, managing director of retail consultancy firm Wazir Advisors, said, “Whatever they have done so far, they have done it pretty well. I think they have a lot of potential in the existing products itself, but my firm belief when it comes to consumer brands is that once you have created a brand, you need to expand the product portfolio.”

According to Mustafa, “On 8 March, the firm announced that Premji Invest, the investment arm of Wipro chairman Azim Premji, had picked up a significant minatory stake in iD Fresh Food for an undisclosed amount of investment. Most of the money the company raised will go into setting up large manufacturing facilities, followed by marketing and research and development.”

The company is also planning to export to markets like the US and the UK this year but termed that as an experiment and said the focus still remains on India.

Outside India, iD Fresh Food’s largest market right now is Saudi Arabia. In India, its biggest markets are Bengaluru, Chennai, Hyderabad and Mumbai. However, the company plans to change the order.

Mustafa added, “About 30-40 years back we used to buy wholewheat, wash it, dry it in sunlight, take it to the mill and then bring it back to make chapatis. We can’t tell this story to our kids now because they’ll laugh at it. And in the next 20 years, you will see the same thing happening in idly dosa batter as well.”