Staying in Pune and craving for sweets and traditional home delicacies during festivities from his hometown Jaipur in Rajasthan meant at least five days of wait for delivery of those items for Vinod Kulhari and his better half Dr Suman Choudhary. That’s when his domain expertise in supply chain management of automotive manufacturing companies came in handy. Vinod realised that good packaging and good connect in first and last mile logistics on different routes can work wonders in this space. And Sweedesi, meaning “desi” sweets and flavours which are traditional, authentic, unadulterated with no preservatives, was born as a platform for hyperlocal intercity delivery at affordable cost.
Sweedesi Technologies Private Limited was incorporated in Pune in December 2018 and featured in a business reality television show recently.
Engineer entrepreneur
Vinod is a mechanical engineer (2002-06) from Army Institute of Technology (AIT) and also did his MBA from Symbiosis in Pune. He later worked in an automotive manufacturing company for five years in different roles of general management, operations, sales and marketing. He then tried his hands at entrepreneurship when he founded a manufacturing startup in 2014 which provided dyes and moulds for various automotive and other appliances companies.
Says Vinod, “While working for the automotive company, one day we were not able to supply few components to our customer from our Chennai plant and instead we had managed to provide it from the Pune plant in just four hours. I had learnt then that there is a quick service that can be used to move any product from one city to another provided you have the volume.”
“While we were disappointed that we could not relish the delicacies in time during festivities, we thought there should be some way that we can explore to make it work. I started interacting with some companies to find out the supply chain mechanism and how we could optimise this process. We started doing some pilot runs in December 2018 just for understanding and to see how the things are coming. We realised that there are some loopholes and we can fix those things,” Vinod said.
Pilot run
Vinod, after completing some trials with friends and family, arrived at some specific set of processes. He says, “We got few packages delivered from Jaipur to Pune. Everybody liked the packaging, the products were intact and the customers said we would like to order more, probably from different places too. That is when we realised that this idea has potential and we should start working on the different aspects of packaging, vendor onboarding, products and categories, etc.”
“Logistics and mode of transport depends on the different volumes we get from different fields, how good our connections with the airlines and cargo industry are. Ravi Kumar of udChalo helped me introduce with some associations and airline industry representatives. We have had good agreements and preferential treatments for our products and that’s how this journey started,” Vinod said.
24-hour model
The Sweedesi model is basically a 24-hour delivery model, meaning delivering a food item to the customer in less than 24 hours of its preparation. Sweedesi is an ecosystem for small regional players to bring them on a global platform and build a logitech company for hyperlocal intercity delivery at affordable cost.
Vinod initially got products from Jaipur and sold it in Pune. He expanded to other sourcing cities like Agra (famous for its Petha), Mathura (Brijwasi Peda), etc. He said, “We slowly increased the number of sourcing cities and number of vendors. We source these authentic desi flavours and regional savours from the best regional vendors who are known for generations for these amazing delicacies. Our ultimate goal is making your taste buds aware of the different traditional delicacies which you might not have heard.”
Lockdown
As the pilots were running well and processes were being set, Covid pandemic started and things came to a halt. Vinod recalls, “We had to stop our operations because of a nationwide lockdown. During the lockdown, we did some WhatsApp marketing, interacted with different society groups, told them about our products and services, sent digital content about us to them. We launched back after first wave in July 2020 and we again got very good feedback and response.”
“Assuming that Covid is over, we started our first experience store near an IT Park in Kharadi. We believed that a crowd of two lakh people coming from different parts of country is a good place to start and that these people will easily relate to the products that we are offering them. But then came the unexpected second wave of the pandemic and that resulted in postponing a lot of things. We had to again pause operations from April to July 2021. We resumed operations from August 2021 but since IT professionals continued working from home, we thought it is wise to focus more on the dark store warehouse online model rather than the experience store. We shut down the experience store in September 2021 and launched everything online,” Vinod stated.
WhatsApp orders
Vinod had developed a website, mobile applications Android and iOS and received orders on WhatsApp as well. However, customers felt convenient ordering on WhatsApp instead of logging on websites and apps etc.
Sharing his customer experiences, Vinod said, “A customer from Amanora had made a micro-group for Sweedesi sweets. The group members connected us to other communities and locations like Kharadi, Hinjewadi, Pimple Saudagar, Kothrud, etc. We didn’t have any funding till that time, so we were going with our own pace. We were generating good amount of money with the orders.”
Business reality
Sweedesi team had applied for a popular business reality show and got selected. After the first round, virtual round and documentation process, Vinod and Suman had to travel to Mumbai for an audition. They were shortlisted for the final round and asked to come for a four-day shoot at film city in Goregaon on November 24 to 28, 2021.
Vinod said, “Before the shoot happened, we had got connected to an investor Varun Jain. As per the deal, we signed the term sheet on November 17, 2021. That actually gave us a lot of confidence that we have the valuation and money also and that we don’t have to just agree to whatever the ‘sharks’ offer us. We could negotiate the offers but since it was below our expectation, we didn’t accept it.”
“The reality show episode was aired on January 4, 2022 after which Sweedesi became a household name. Despite mentioning that Sweedesi delivers only in Pune, it started receiving orders pan-India. A lot of interest was generated from investors and individual customer’s end. Customers were pleading to launch services in their cities,” claimed Vinod.
Offerings
Says Vinod, “We had realised that we have to move fast because there was an acceptance of our service. Starting February 20, we launched our service in Mumbai and later in Jaipur, Kolkata and Delhi. By June-end we will be present in Bengaluru and Hyderabad too.”
“We are also launching a separate category for pan-India service. In this, except few products, most of the products will be available for customers across India. We will tie up with a super-fast courier partner who will be able to deliver these products in two days,” Vinod said.
Sharing his competitive pricing strategy, Vinod said, “I belong to a middle-class family and we want to cater to the mid segment also. The prices we are offering are very competitive. We do a market study and accordingly put our price which is ₹10-20 less than local players and competitors. That is the entire beauty of logistics. For example, Motichoor Laddu of desi ghee costs ₹350 half kg in Pune but on our platform customers may get it at ₹340.”
Co-branding
Sweedesi will also be co-branding some products. Vinod added, “We want to let people know that we are not the manufacturer but it is brought to them by Sweedesi. With our unique packaging technology, we will be increasing the shelf life of the product.”
Admitting that Sweedesi has been weak in marketing, Vinod says, “We needed money for expansion to different cities and marketing activities. We have been very weak on marketing so far, but now we are going for a holistic approach. Apart from digital marketing, we will collaborate with housing societies through gated community apps. 80 per cent of my target market resides in these societies.”
Supply chain model
The supply chain model of Sweedesi involves three stages. First mile, in-transit and last mile delivery. In the first mile stage, individual vendors are responsible to bring the product to the Sweedesi hub in different cities. Sweedesi has three major hubs – Jaipur for western and northern region, Kolkata for eastern region and Pune for southern region.
Future plans
Revealing his future plans, Vinod said, “Logistic operations is our backbone. We are relaunching our website June-end with new look and new functionalities. A new application will also be launched in July. Apart from launching services in seven cities, we are making Jaipur hub as our prime hub, from where we are planning to launch all-India operations as well. We are installing advanced packaging machines at a 6,000 sqft warehouse in Jaipur. Other recent food technologies and packaging technologies will also be introduced over the next two years.”
For the love of goodies
Sweedesi is based on a 24-hour delivery model, meaning delivering a food item to the customer in less than 24 hours of its preparation
Customers Served
12,000 since 2020
Pune, Mumbai and Delhi top three markets
Age: 20 to 65 years
Salary: ₹40,000 to 50,000 per month
Average order value: ₹850 per order in last 5 months
Revenue
2019: ₹5 lakh
2020: ₹40 lakh
2021: ₹60 lakh
2022: ₹40 lakh (till May)
Funding
₹1.2 crore by Varun Jain
