Getting into niche segments into food delivery, is probably the next logical step for startups looking to get into this space. And Delight Foods, which has attracted a $150K pre-launch funding round, is doing exactly that.
This pre-launch round comes from Investment bank MAPE Advisory Group and Fireside Ventures. The two will together invest more in coming rounds, but the amount is undisclosed.
Delight Foods is an online platform for you to order cuisines, from some of the most exotic Indian food brands from across the country. And it isn’t your usual food ordering platform wherein you get 1000s of restaurant listing to choose from. Instead, you get to order form Indian food brands, known for a particular stuff they bake.
Be it ChaiRam (estd. 1901)’s Karachi Halwa, or Agra’s world-famous Petha, you get to choose from these exotic Indian dishes sourced from 11 cities in India.
The platform, launched this month Ramesh Krishnamurthy, currently has five categories of items – sweets, savouries, masalas/mixes, pappads/pickles and biscuits – selling over 60 brands and 600 products. Ramesh has a massive 25 years experience in fast-moving consumer goods space.
And while the business in itself is niche and to an extent, innovative, the entire delivery process is all the more interesting.
Understanding the perishable nature of such items, Delight Foods has test operated a robust delivery mechanism in the past two months.
The startup has set up a packaging centre in each of the cities from where it is serving these items. The cuisine you order, is packed in its city of origin itself, shipped to your location re-packed and sent to your place of delivery. It takes 48-72 hours to deliver in this entire process.
For example, if you order Agra’s famous Panchii Coconut pethas, they are packed in Delight Food’s packaging station at Agra, shipped from there to your location city, re-packed and re-branded, and delivered to you.
Krishnamurthy says,
We have developed various types of packaging depending on the kind of product.
For orders of upto₹500 in value, Delight Foods takes up 99 as shipping charges, Order upto₹1000 are shipped for free.
Delight Foods will add more categories and products as it scales up with services around occasions and festivals, events when demands for such products rockets up in India unseen anywhere else.
