Rohan Rehani and Nitin Vishwas, Co-Founders, Ronin Wines
Ronin Wines Private Limited, a Pune-based company known for producing Moonshine Meads, has accomplished a significant achievement by securing $675k in a pre-Series A funding round. The investment has been contributed by Rainmatter Capital and Grip Invest, with additional participation from Auxano Capital, Supermorpheus, Anthill Capital, and a consortium of angel investors.
The raised funds will be employed to enhance the brand’s presence in its current markets and facilitate the growth of Moonshine Honey Project, a brand centered around honey production and beekeeping. Moonshine Honey Project, which was introduced in 2021, has been actively engaged in selling honey through both B2C and B2B channels. Moreover, the project has recently launched a pioneering initiative known as ‘Bee Hotels’ to contribute to the preservation of solitary bees impacted by urbanization and deforestation.
Nitin Vishwas, Co-founder of Ronin Wines said, “We are very excited to have the two investors join us as we build Moonshine. Rainmatter’s commitment to tackling climate change and supporting sustainability aligns well with our mission to preserve the dwindling bee population in the country. With Grip Invest joining our team, we now have access to numerous alternative financing solutions that we will need as we scale our alcobev business.”
Founded in 2018 by Nitin Vishwas and Rohan Rehani, Moonshine stands as a trailblazing mead brand in India. Blending pure honey with a medley of fruits and spices, Moonshine crafts its meads through the process of fermentation. With a focus on being low in alcohol and carbonated, Moonshine’s meads are leading the charge in India’s rapidly expanding Ready-To-Drink market.
In their quest for innovation, Moonshine continually explores a wide array of ingredients. From multifloral honey and orange blossom honey to coffee beans, guavas, apples, chillies, and kaffir lime, they curate a diverse range of meads to satisfy diverse palates. Alongside their flagship meads like Apple Mead, Traditional Mead, and Coffee Mead, Moonshine introduces seasonal offerings under the name MeadLABs.
Having garnered acclaim within the Indian alcoholic beverage sector, Moonshine’s presence extends across multiple regions. Currently, their products are available in Maharashtra, Karnataka, Goa, Haryana, Rajasthan, Himachal Pradesh, UAE, Australia, and New Zealand.
Swiggy, the renowned foodtech giant, is reportedly poised to join the bandwagon of co-branded credit cards. Following in the footsteps of Flipkart, Myntra, and Paytm, who have already ventured into this realm, Swiggy is preparing to unveil its own co-branded credit card offering.
Sources cited in an ET report indicate that Swiggy, the popular food delivery platform, will be teaming up with HDFC Bank to launch their co-branded credit card. Mastercard is anticipated to serve as the network partner for this collaboration.
Additionally, it is reported that Swiggy plans to leverage flat discounts and exclusive offers on its hyperlocal delivery services for customers using their co-branded credit card. Moreover, the foodtech giant may extend additional discounts for Dineout, Swiggy’s restaurant bill payment service, further enhancing the benefits for cardholders.
Furthermore, the introduction of the co-branded card will serve as an additional revenue stream for Swiggy. Despite being profitable in its core food delivery business, the company continues to incur substantial losses of around $20 million per month in its Instamart venture, as reported by TechCrunch recently.
Interestingly, Swiggy finds itself entering the credit card space relatively late, considering that Zomato has already discontinued its co-branded credit card with RBL Bank in April. The major player in the foodtech industry had introduced its own credit card back in 2020, but has now decided to discontinue it.
According to sources quoted by ET, Swiggy is strategically aiming to fill the void created by Zomato’s departure from the credit card market. The sources further revealed that Swiggy intends to launch its co-branded credit card in the coming weeks, highlighting that the company has been diligently working on this partnership since early last year.
Another individual mentioned in the story noted that Swiggy has assembled a substantial technology team dedicated to banking integrations, with the aim of expediting the product launch process.
Although credit cards serve as a robust avenue for venturing into financial services, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has recently imposed limitations on the role of co-branding partners. The RBI now restricts co-branding partners to solely functioning as sourcing channels for banks, explicitly prohibiting any further data sharing between these entities.
Swiggy’s decision comes at a time when the foodtech giant is strategically rearranging its pieces on the chessboard, aiming to achieve the most lucrative outcome.
In a bid to diversify its offerings, Swiggy introduced a new product earlier this year called Maxx. This platform provides a wide range of products including home and kitchen appliances, electronics, utensils, clothing, and baby care items. Currently, Swiggy is conducting a pilot program for Maxx in Bengaluru. Additionally, Swiggy has ventured into the vertical marketplace space with Minis, which focuses on offering products from various direct-to-consumer (D2C) brands and their niche offerings.
On the other hand, Swiggy has made strategic decisions to streamline its business operations. It has discontinued certain business verticals such as Handpicked, its gourmet grocery segment. Additionally, Swiggy sold its kitchen infrastructure business, Access, to Kitchens@. To optimize its workforce, the company also implemented a reduction in staff, resulting in the layoff of 380 employees earlier this year.
According to a recent report by Motilal Oswal, it is projected that Swiggy will experience a flat growth in Gross Merchandise Value (GMV) during the second half of 2022 compared to the first half of the year. The report estimates that Swiggy’s total GMV for 2022 will reach $2.6 billion. This forecast indicates that Zomato will surpass Swiggy in terms of market share, positioning itself ahead in the highly competitive food delivery market.
According to the estimates provided in the report, Zomato commanded a significant market share of 56% during the second half of 2022, with a GMV of $1.6 billion. In comparison, Swiggy trailed behind with a GMV of $1.3 billion, representing a slightly smaller market share.
In addition, Swiggy has experienced a decline in its valuation as several investors, including Invesco and Baron Capital, have marked down its value to $5.5 billion and $6.5 billion respectively. These markdowns have resulted in Swiggy’s valuation falling below that of Zomato, which has recently witnessed a significant surge in value on the stock market.
Coffee Day Enterprises Ltd (CDEL) reported on Tuesday a total default of INR 440.25 crore in the quarter ended on June 30, 2023. According to a regulatory filing to bourses, the company stated that its “total financial indebtedness of listed entity including short term and long term debt” is INR 465.25 crore.
According to CDEL, its total outstanding amount is INR 220.48 crore from loans or revolving facilities like cash credit from banks or financial institutions.
As of now, CDEL has defaulted on a sum of INR 189.70 crore and an additional interest payment of INR 5.78 crore.
CDEL has stated that its total outstanding amount from unlisted debt securities, including NCDs (Non-Convertible Debentures) and NCRPS (Non-Convertible Redeemable Preference Shares), is INR 244.77 crore. As of the present date, the company has defaulted on a total of INR 200 crore, in addition to an interest payment of INR 44.77 crore.
The company has been actively working towards resolving its debts by implementing asset resolutions, which has led to a substantial reduction in its outstanding liabilities. This effort to address the debt situation began following the unfortunate demise of founder Chairman V G Siddhartha in July 2019.
In March 2020, CDEL made an announcement regarding the repayment of INR 1,644 crore to 13 lenders. This repayment was made possible through a deal concluded with the Blackstone Group, involving the sale of its technology business park.
At the beginning of this year, CDEL faced a penalty of INR 26 crore imposed by SEBI, the capital markets regulator. The penalty was levied due to CDEL’s failure to prevent the diversion of INR 3,535 crore from its subsidiaries.
CDEL is currently engaged in legal efforts to recover the amount from Mysore Amalgamated Coffee Estates Ltd (MACEL).
Tata Consumer Products (TCP), a leading player in the Fast-Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG) industry, has set its sights on achieving a 5 percent sales contribution from its latest product offerings by the fiscal year 2025.
Since 2020, Tata Consumer Products (TCP) has introduced an impressive lineup of 70 new products. These innovative additions have made a significant impact on the company’s sales, with their contribution rising from 0.8 percent in FY20 to an impressive 3.4 percent in FY23.
Tata Consumer Products (TCP) has introduced a range of innovative products that have captured consumers’ attention. Among these noteworthy offerings are Tata Salt Immuno, Tata Simply Better (a plant-based burger patty), Tata Gluco+, Tata GoFit (a plant-based protein powder), Himalayan Preserves, Himalayan Honey, and Tata Soulfull Masala Oats with millets. These products showcase TCP’s commitment to delivering unique and wholesome options to meet the evolving needs and preferences of its customers.
Vikas Gupta, Head of Global Research and Development at Tata Consumer Products, said, “We streamlined our capabilities and infrastructure last year. In the Bangalore centre, we have some of our central functions, including research, Analytics, a sensory lab, and a packaging development centre. In Kharghar, there is a food innovation centre with development teams that handle the entire mandate for the food business. It caters to both Tata Sampann and ready-to-eat businesses. In Sri City, we have a centre for both food and beverage portfolios. We have 20,000 square feet of research and development facility to drive innovation.”
Tata Consumer Products is also strategizing to enhance its range of health-conscious products across various categories. This includes a focus on reducing sugar content in beverages and fortifying salt to provide healthier alternatives.
“Health and wellness are relevant for the food and beverage industry, and organisations focused on innovation cannot stay away from it. In salt, we were the first to come up with a patented formula on double-fortified salt, and in some of our tea products, we are looking at functional benefits in it,” he said.
The company is exploring the utilization of AI to shorten innovation cycles and swiftly adapt to evolving consumer trends in the FMCG industry.
“We are looking at how we leverage AI and the whole digital space. How do we digitize our innovation process and tracking governance mechanism in such a manner that we can churn out more projects in a shorter period of time? We are working with two global agencies on a pilot scale to spot early emerging trends,” added Vikas.
According to Dabur India’s annual report, the company announced on Tuesday that its brand portfolio has expanded to include 17 brands, each generating sales between INR 100-500 crore. In the fiscal year 2023, the company witnessed the success of five additional brands, namely Honitus, Real Drinks, Odomos, and Dabur Herb’l, all of which achieved sales exceeding INR 100 crore.
In a letter to shareholders, Mohit Burman, Chairman, Dabur India, said, “Today, we have a portfolio of 23 billion rupee brands, with sales greater than INR 100 crore. The year 2022-23 saw 5 brands joining this list. In all, we now have 17 brands that are above INR 100 crore but lesser than INR 500 crore in size; 2 brands that are over INR 500 crore but less than INR 1,000 crore in size, and another 4 brands that have a turnover of more than INR 1,000 crore.”
In the previous fiscal year, as part of its inorganic growth strategy, the FMCG giant also incorporated Badshah Masala into its portfolio.
“The year also marked Dabur’s entry into the ground and blended spices category with the acquisition of 51 per cent shareholding of Badshah Masala Pvt Ltd. This acquisition is in line with Dabur’s strategic intent to expand its foods business to INR 500 crore in 3 years,” Burman stated.
In reference to the macroeconomic conditions, Burman remarked that with the alleviation of pandemic-related pressures, a new challenge emerged in the form of high inflation. This inflationary trend led to a significant rise in commodity prices, reaching multi-decade highs in various countries.
“The inflationary environment also took a toll on consumption patterns as consumers tightened their purse-strings and the consumer goods industry witnessed a slowdown,” he added.
“Despite an uncertain macro climate, I am confident about the resilience of Dabur’s strategy and business construct,” he added.
Anticipating decreased prices for its key commodities, the FMCG major foresees an expansion in gross margins for the ongoing fiscal year.
“This expanded gross margin will be allocated in two primary ways. Firstly, a portion will be allocated towards advertising and promotion (A&P) investments, which have experienced some moderation due to high inflation. Secondly, the remaining portion will contribute to gradual improvement of our operating margin,” Dabur India’s annual report said.
Lufthansa has recently unveiled a selection of specially-crafted Indian food options, aiming to elevate the dining experience for Indian travelers both arriving in and departing from India. In line with their commitment to delivering outstanding culinary journeys, the airline strives to provide its esteemed Indian clientele with exceptional dining experiences.
The meal options for both economy and premium economy classes will now feature a variety of hot breakfast choices in both Indian and Western styles. In economy class, passengers can select from two main course meals available in either Western or Indian style. On the other hand, premium economy class offers a wider range of main course options, including Indian style and Western style, Western style and Indian AVML (Asian Vegetarian Meal), as well as Indian style with 60 percent vegetarian and Western style with 40 percent chicken.
Both classes will offer a variety of snacks such as wraps and sandwiches, as well as beverages like masala tea and coffee. Special meal options will also be available for all passengers. In addition to these offerings, the premium economy segment will have the exclusive choice of cold breakfast and dinner variants.
Lufthansa said, “The Business Class will consist of special offerings like an Express Menu, hot meals with unique bread options such as mixed veg paranthas, which will be served together with German bread/rolls along with new salad options.”
The passengers here would have an option of three main courses – Western style with 50 percent meat, Western style with 30 percent fish and Indian style with 40 percent vegetarian, accompanied by pickles, saunf supari and raita. The airline will also offer cheese and dessert service, including fresh fruits, ice cream, three kinds of cheese, and regional beverages like lassi, masala tea and fresh lemonade for passengers.
First-class passengers will be offered a selection of two Western and two Indian main courses, complemented by two cold appetizers. They will also enjoy welcome drinks accompanied by premium nuts, a diverse array of bread options, and four distinct types of rolls. Additionally, there will be an assortment of cold plates and snacks, featuring both Western and Indian styles. The first-class experience will further include the convenience of dine-on-demand service.
In a significant development, Westrock Coffee Company has officially entered into definitive agreements with affiliates of HF Capital and the Herbert Hunt family. These agreements entail a combined equity investment of $75 million being made in the company.
Under these agreements, the aggregate equity investments will be executed by acquiring 7,500,000 shares of Westrock Coffee Company’s common stock at a rate of $10 per share. The completion of these transactions is anticipated to take place in August 2023, subject to the fulfillment of standard closing prerequisites.
Westrock Coffee also made a noteworthy announcement regarding their plans to inaugurate a state-of-the-art facility in Conway, Arkansas, USA. This significant endeavor is the outcome of a remarkable investment exceeding $300 million. Notably, the establishment of this new facility is anticipated to create 600 job opportunities within a span of five years, boasting an average annual salary of approximately $70,000.
The facility will employ cutting-edge machinery, including specialized robotics, to streamline the production and packaging of a diverse range of beverages. These beverages will include cold brew coffees, lattes, various teas, juice-based products, and single-serve coffee cups, all packaged in cans or bottles. Additionally, the site will feature a dedicated product development laboratory and a pilot plant certified by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA). This setup will empower Westrock to invent, evaluate, and manufacture innovative beverage options.
Scott T Ford, CEO and Co-Founder of Westrock Coffee, stated, “We are excited to announce both a follow-on $50 million equity investment by HF Capital, one of the original investors in our go-public transaction and a $25 million equity investment by the Herbert Hunt family, a new investor who was excited for the opportunity to partner with our team as we expand our extract and ready-to-drink (RTD) capabilities.”
He further stated that the inclusion of equity investments and the amendment to the credit agreement are integral components of a capital plan enabling the company to finalize the construction of two additional can lines and the Conway facility.
The expansion of the extracts and RTD business in Conway is the gateway to future EBITDA expansion and remains Westrock Coffee’s top strategic priority and key enabler of future growth, he concluded.
Andrew Seamons, Chief Investment Officer at HF Capital, commented, “Our agreement to make this additional investment further validates our belief in Westrock Coffee’s strategy to capitalise on the strong demand for extracts and RTD as a growing consumer category and on the ability of the Westrock Coffee team to deliver on that strategy”.
Online food delivery platform Swiggy on Tuesday said it has introduced an industry-first ‘WhatToEat’ feature aiming to simplify the selection process by offering personalised recommendations tailored to users’ current moods, location, order history, the time of the day and other preferences.
According to Swiggy, the app now allows users to express their cravings by choosing from a variety of mood bubbles.
The feature will inform users of the rationale behind each recommendation, whether it’s based on their order history, local trends, or popularity among other Swiggy users.
To streamline the decision-making process, WhatToEat presents users with ten personalised recommendations for each order, cutting through the overwhelming number of choices, the food delivery platform stated.
India’s palm oil imports in June experienced a substantial 49% surge compared to the previous month, reaching their highest level in three months, as revealed by six dealers who spoke to Reuters. This surge was driven by buyers seizing the opportunity presented by a significant dip in prices, which had hit their lowest point in 28 months. Consequently, purchasers took full advantage of the favorable market conditions to ramp up their palm oil purchases.
The resurgence in purchasing activity from the largest global importer of vegetable oil is expected to bolster Malaysian palm oil futures and assist leading producers Indonesia and Malaysia in reducing their stockpiles. In June, India’s palm oil imports surged to an estimated 655,000 metric tons, marking a significant increase from the 439,173 metric tons recorded in May, as reported by industry dealers.
Due to the recent trend of palm oil trading at a higher price compared to soyoil and sunflower oil, the month of May witnessed the lowest imports since February 2021. This price disparity has encouraged buyers to transition towards the more affordable soft oils as a substitute for palm oil.
Sandeep Bajoria, CEO of Sunvin Group, a vegetable oil brokerage and consultancy firm, explained that the decrease in imports during May, along with a subsequent price correction, motivated Indian buyers to boost their purchases in June.
Due to its affordability and efficient shipping times, price-sensitive Asian buyers traditionally depend on palm oil as their preferred choice.
The Solvent Extractors’ Association of India is expected to release its June data on vegetable oil imports by mid-July.
According to industry dealers, India witnessed a significant surge of 35% in soyoil imports in June, reaching 432,000 metric tons, compared to the previous month.
Rajesh Patel, the managing partner at GGN Research, an edible oil trader and broker, mentioned that the marginal price difference between soyoil and palm oil in recent months has prompted buyers to escalate their purchases of soyoil.
Sunflower oil imports in June plunged 36% from a month ago to 190,000 metric tons, dealers said.
India buys palm oil mainly from Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand, while it imports soyoil and sunflower oil from Argentina, Brazil, Russia and Ukraine.
Annapurna Swadisht, a fast-moving consumer food company based in Eastern India, made a significant announcement on Tuesday. The company has entered into an exclusive contract manufacturing agreement with Gopal Food Product. This strategic partnership brings together Annapurna Swadisht’s expertise in the food industry with Gopal Food Product’s manufacturing capabilities. Located at UPSIDC, Kotwan Industrial Area in Mathura, Uttar Pradesh, Gopal Food Product’s facility will serve as the dedicated manufacturing hub for Annapurna Swadisht’s products.
The newly established facility has a monthly production capacity of 1000 metric tons (MT) of biscuits, 60 MT of namkeen, and 150 MT of snacks. This state-of-the-art unit is capable of serving various regions, including East and North Rajasthan, the entirety of Haryana, West and Central Uttar Pradesh, Delhi-NCR, North Madhya Pradesh, South & West Uttarakhand, and more. To expand its footprint in Uttar Pradesh (UP), the company is actively enrolling new dealers and distributors, aiming to enhance its market presence in the region.
Recently, the company acquired the exclusive selling rights of a renowned noodle brand “My NOODLES” from Millenium Exim Private Limited. The company at present has more than 72 SKUs across its product portfolio.
Commenting on the development, Shreeram Bagla, Managing Director of Annapurna Swadisht Limited, said, “At Annapurna, we believe our products bridge a critical gap between affordability and superior quality. This has enabled us to expand our presence across the urban markets, especially in the eastern part of the country. We are now taking the affordability, quality, and taste proposition to similar markets led by our latest foray into UP. We are looking forward to offering choices to the consumers across the categories”.
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