KisaanSay Founder and CEO Nitin Puri on how the brand is building India’s first and largest single-origin food portfolio through farmer partnerships, product traceability and a co-brand, co-profit model
In India’s crowded packaged food market, KisaanSay is seeking to differentiate itself through a proposition centred on the origin of food. By connecting consumers directly with farmer producer companies (FPCs), the brand aims to offer greater transparency on sourcing, quality and traceability while ensuring farmers participate in the value created. With over 100 products, a network of more than 50,000 farmers and a reported repeat purchase rate of over 60 per cent, the company is now looking to expand its portfolio, distribution footprint and farmer partnerships.
In a conversation with BW Retail World, Nitin Puri, Founder and CEO, KisaanSay, discusses the brand’s business model, consumer behaviour, channel expansion and growth priorities for the next three to five years.
India’s packaged food market is crowded, with brands competing on quality, pricing and positioning. How is KisaanSay differentiating itself, and what do you believe will make consumers establish a lasting connection with FMCG brands?
If you look at India’s food FMCG industry, there is no single brand that offers food products with a promise of origin. This is true of both multinational and Indian brands. But why is it important to know where your food comes from? Because its origin determines its quality, taste, health and nutritional benefits.
Surprisingly, no food brand tells consumers the complete story of where their food comes from. We have therefore established what we believe is India’s first and largest single-origin food brand, with an extensive assortment across categories such as rice, dry fruits, oils, ghee, spices, pulses and millets. Every product comes with the promise of single origin.
Take walnuts, for instance. Most consumers today buy imported walnuts sourced from different parts of the world. However, if you are assured that the walnuts you are buying come from Kashmir, and are told the specific village and location they originate from, it makes a difference.
Kashmir has a centuries-old heritage of walnut cultivation. These walnuts are naturally grown and are not subjected to the kind of processing that imported varieties often undergo. They also have a higher oil content, including unsaturated fats, compared with imported walnuts.
When consumers buy Kashmiri walnuts that are grown, processed and packed at source, they get a product that is fresher, sweeter and tastier. They are naturally dried and vacuum-packed at source, without unnecessary processing.
This is just one example. We have more than 100 products, working with 25 farmer groups across over 10 states and a network of more than 50,000 farmers. These farmer producer companies work closely with KisaanSay through a co-brand, co-profit model.
In a market full of brands, stories and claims, our differentiation is that we tell consumers the story behind the product: its origin, variety, location, where it was grown and where it was packed. Functional differentiation in terms of taste and quality gives consumers a reason to buy, while the place of origin gives them a reason to believe in the brand.
Your business model puts farmer enterprises at the centre of sourcing, branding and value creation. How does the co-brand, co-profit model work commercially, and how do you ensure that farmer partnerships remain financially viable as KisaanSay scales?
We have a very interesting model, which we call the co-brand, co-profit partnership model.
Co-branding essentially means that every KisaanSay product carries both the KisaanSay logo and the logo of the respective farmer group on the front of the pack. On the back, consumers get detailed information about the product, its place of origin and the farmers behind it.
We also have a QR code-based traceability system through which consumers can access information about the farmers, the location, laboratory reports, farmer stories, videos and recipes.
From a consumer’s standpoint, this offers 360-degree visibility and the assurance that they are getting the right product from the right place, directly from the source.
For farmers, co-branding is a matter of great pride and prestige. Their identity, name and village are displayed on the front of the pack. It gives them recognition and ownership of the product.
The second element is co-profit. The entire supply chain activity, including raw material aggregation, processing, packaging and logistics, is managed by the farmer producer company. KisaanSay takes care of marketing and distribution.
The direct operating costs of both entities are clubbed together. Whatever price is realised from selling the product to consumers, after deducting the total direct costs of supply chain operations and marketing and distribution, the remaining margin is shared equally between the respective FPC and KisaanSay.
This co-brand plus co-profit model creates a strong relationship with both farmers and consumers. Farmers get a sense of pride and prestige, while consumers get confidence in the brand because of the transparency involved.
It creates a virtuous cycle in which everybody benefits. Farmers and consumers are the two most important stakeholders in the food chain. If they are happy, we are happy.
What is your approach to channel expansion? How do you see ecommerce, quick commerce and offline retail contributing to brand visibility, customer acquisition and repeat purchases?
We have a repeat purchase rate of almost 60 per cent. This reflects the strong brand affinity we have built. And we are still a relatively young brand, having been around for about two-and-a-half years. We will complete three years this financial year.
For a food FMCG brand to achieve over 60 per cent repeat purchases in less than three years is quite a significant development. This goes back to our co-brand, co-profit proposition, which creates a strong trust factor and affinity across both sides of the supply chain.
Your identity is built around product origin and authenticity. How do you verify sourcing, maintain consistent quality across different farmer clusters and communicate the value of geographical origins to consumers who may not be familiar with them?
This operates at two levels. The first is our internal supply chain.
I have worked in the food industry for over 25 years before venturing out with KisaanSay. We also have a very senior leadership team on the operations side, comprising professionals with more than two decades of experience in large corporations.
We have established systems and processes to ensure traceability and supply chain integrity. This allows us to offer consumers products with robust supply chain integrity and a strong promise of traceability.
The second level is consumer communication. If you look at our social media content, you will find several videos featuring farmers, explaining where the products come from, who the farmers are and how they manage their operations while maintaining supply chain integrity.
Every KisaanSay pack carries the product name, seal of origin, brand identity and the identity of the farmer group on the front. The back of the pack provides additional information, including a QR code through which consumers can access details about the product’s origin, laboratory reports, farmer stories and the places where the food is grown.
It is a 360-degree approach to telling the complete story and giving consumers the full picture. We have built a fairly robust system, both internally through our processes and externally through consumer engagement and communication. This has helped us build considerable trust among consumers.
Following your recent funding round, you have outlined ambitions to expand your product portfolio, farmer network and market reach. What are your key business priorities over the next three to five years, and which metrics will define success?
For us, it is not about choosing one metric over another. Customer trust, increasing our share of consumers’ grocery spending, scaling the business and expanding our footprint among customers and farmers are all equally important.
We are working on product diversification and portfolio expansion, farmer network expansion and market share growth.
On the farmer front, we currently work with around 50,000 farmers. Over the next three to five years, we should be looking at increasing this number by at least 20 times.
We have been expanding rapidly, with revenue growing almost two-fold every six to eight months. As we grow, there is considerable potential for cross-selling and up-selling to existing customers. With a repeat purchase rate of over 60%, expanding our product portfolio will give us opportunities to grow revenue from both existing and new customers.
A stronger farmer network is essential to support this portfolio expansion. From our current presence across around a dozen states, we aim to have a supply chain and farmer network in almost every state in India over the next three to five years.
On the market front, we have so far focused largely on our own web store and app-based sales, with relatively limited presence on marketplaces and in offline retail.
We will now scale up our offline presence, which was earlier restricted largely to Delhi-NCR. We are moving into Mumbai and other cities.
We have also started expanding our quick-commerce presence. We have kicked off our association with Blinkit around Diwali in a big way, not just in Delhi but also in other cities across India. We are also scaling up our presence on other marketplaces and quick-commerce platforms.
Our own KisaanSay web store business will continue to grow. Overall, we expect strong growth across product portfolio, farmer partnerships, market share, customer acquisition and repeat purchases.
Consumers in smaller cities are often perceived as being more price-conscious. Are they willing to pay a premium for differentiated, better-quality food products?
Absolutely. We tend to believe that most sales will come from Delhi, Mumbai, Gurugram, Hyderabad and Bengaluru. However, we receive orders from places such as Durgapur, Dimapur, Pulwama, Thrissur and Chandrapur. Some of these are not even Tier II cities; they could be classified as Tier III or Tier IV locations.
We also receive orders from semi-urban and rural areas. Recently, I was surprised to see an order from a regular customer in a village in West Bengal’s North 24 Parganas district.
Discerning and aware consumers are present everywhere. Their numbers may vary, but they exist across geographies.
This brings us back to the proposition we discussed at the beginning of the interview. If you have a differentiated product and a distinctly different value proposition, there is no dearth of consumers. People in Tier II and Tier III cities are willing to buy your products and pay a premium for them.
They may be paying a 30-40 per cent premium, but the perceived value in their minds could be 100 per cent. It all depends on how consumers evaluate the product and the value they derive from it. This does not necessarily differ between Tier I and Tier II cities or between different consumer segments.
Is there anything new that KisaanSay is bringing to the market this festive season?
This Diwali, we have introduced a special product called the Indian Dry Fruit Gift Box.
Most consumers traditionally gift imported dry fruits. While many of the companies selling these gift boxes are Indian, almost all the dry fruits in them are imported.
We have therefore introduced what we believe is India’s first all-Indian dry fruit gift box. It includes Konkan cashews, Kashmiri walnuts, Nashik raisins and Kashmiri Mamra, bringing together Indian-origin products in a specially curated gift box.
The product has been doing very well and has received a positive response from customers across India.
It is another example of how a differentiated proposition can make a difference. We are offering consumers better, tastier and healthier products while also helping farmers improve their livelihoods and incomes.
Ultimately, that is the idea behind KisaanSay: making a difference to consumers and farmers alike.
