Pluckk, a fresh food brand that focuses on lifestyle, has made a significant acquisition by purchasing KOOK, an Indian food-tech startup that offers consumers DIY Meal Kits. The acquisition was completed for $1.3 million, paid through a combination of cash and equity.
Founded in July 2021 by Co-founders Pratik Gupta and seed-funded by Exponentia Ventures (EV), Pluckk is a B2C fresh produce food tech supply chain platform. It’s currently operating in Bangalore and Mumbai and is the first digital fresh food brand in the Fruits and Vegetables (F&V) space to prioritize lifestyle.
The platform’s mission is to enable the ‘farm-to-table’ concept by providing end consumers with direct access to a wide range of gourmet fruits and vegetables from farmers without intermediaries. Pluckk has already partnered with over 500 farmers in Mumbai and Bengaluru and plans to expand its reach to 1,000 farmers in the next six months.
KOOK, a DIY Meal Kit Startup founded by ISB Alumni Nikhil and Arpitta in 2020, aims to simplify and streamline the process of at-home cooking. Operating in Delhi and Mumbai, KOOK offers ready-to-cook kits with semi-prepped and pre-portioned ingredients that are freshly sourced, hygienically packed, and free of preservatives. The company’s mission is to make cooking wholesome and high-quality meals less daunting for people. With KOOK’s meal kits, customers can create a perfect meal from start to finish in under 20 minutes, making at-home cooking hassle-free and easy.
Pluckk’s acquisition of KOOK is a strategic step towards leveraging the immense growth potential of the meal kit industry, and it opens up significant opportunities for Pluckk. The global meal kit market is expected to experience a 20% CAGR, growing from $15.21 billion in 2021 to $31.5 billion by 2025. With KOOK’s expertise and a strong customer base in the meal kit market, Pluckk is in an excellent position to provide top-quality fresh food to its customers in this thriving $15 billion market.
Speaking on the acquisition, Nelson D`Souza, CFO,Pluckk, said, “We are thrilled to welcome the young team of KOOK to the Pluckk family. Their demonstrated expertise in building a world-class product in the meal-kit space, coupled with our commitment to provide safe and chemical-free produce, will enable us to offer an unbeatable farm-to-fork experience to customers across India. In the post-Covid world, Ready to CookMeal Kits have emerged as a sought after cooking trend with customers preferring to control the quality of food consumed while having more dining options which we look to leverage by offering this differentiator to our customer experience. Further, from a unit economics point-of-view, this is a welcome addition to our portfolio and will help us accelerate our journey towards building a profitable business.”
KOOK, Co-Founder, Arpitta Jerath said, “We are thrilled to be joining forces with Pluckk and becoming a part of their innovative fresh food ecosystem. The synergies between what we are building at KOOK and the lifestyle first approach that Pluckk brings to the Fruits & Vegetables category seems very compelling. Our range of DIY Meal Kits, combined with Pluckk`s digital lifestyle-oriented brand, will allow us to offer even more convenience and healthy meal options to the discerning customers in the ever-growing markets Pluckk operates in.”
KOOK, Co-Founder, Nikhil Thatai said, “At KOOK, we are committed to making cooking easy and convenient for our customers and we are excited to bring our range of DIY Meal Kits to even more people through our synergies with Pluckk. We estimate the market size of meal kits to be around $1 billion by 2025 in India and we look forward to leveraging our expertise in meal kit delivery to offer healthy and delicious meal options to cater to this booming market in our country.”