Zomato: Betting the farm

#News(AgriTech) [ via IoTForIndiaGroup ]

How food tech major Zomato is making an audacious bid to transform itself into a farm-to-fork company
Welcome to Bengaluru where food tech major Zomato is making an audacious bid to transform itself into a farm-to fork-company with HyperPure. A supplies platform for restaurants, HyperPure practically sells everything that a hotel needs: From vegetables and fruit, poultry, groceries and spices to dairy beverages and even eco-friendly packaging.

The goods are procured directly from the source. Vegetables, for instance, are sourced from small independent farmers and FPOs (farmer producer organisations) that don’t use pesticides. Poultry is procured from farms that ensure that the chicken is antibiotic residue-free. Big-ticket grocery items come directly from the big consumer companies. To ensure that quality standards are adhered to, Zomato has roped in Equinox Labs, an independent food quality auditing firm, with the mandate to regularly test samples.

“We are trying to transform Zomato into a foods company, much on the lines of a farm-to-fork model,” says Deepinder Goyal, co-founder of Zomato, which started in 2008 as a food discovery and ratings platform. The intent, he lets on, is not only to supply ‘clean’ and ‘fresh’ produce to the restaurants but also make a strong business proposition out of it.

Goyal explains how. What HyperPure sells to merchants, he stresses, is not just antibiotic residue-free poultry, pesticide-free vegetables and high-quality groceries but also the proposition that the restaurants get certified on Zomato’s web page for using such ingredients. “Consumers will buy food for the sticker that assures high quality and safety,” he reckons, adding that it’s a win-win for restaurants and consumers.

The Gurugram-headquartered company is betting big on the high level of awareness among Indians about abuse of antibiotics by poultry producers. Early this year, the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) reiterated that antibiotic use in poultry sector is rampant in India. “They (producers) are even using life-saving drugs like colistin to fatten chicken. There seems to be no genuine attempt by the industry to reduce antibiotic misuse,” Chandra Bhushan, deputy director general at CSE, reportedly said.

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