India’s organized Fish & Seafood retail business is in its nascent stages; with over 95% of the business being attributed to the unorganized wet markets set across the various neighbourhood in India.
The Indian urban fish & sea food market size is expected to grow to INR 1950 billion by 2027 from the current INR 650 billion, at a CAGR of 18%. Many organized retail players are now trying to find their footings into the fish & seafood business as an addition to their existing chicken & meat categories.
On the other hand, Jalongi, a startup that focuses primarily on fish & seafood category, is building a strong supply chain network to bring ‘variety of quality fish & seafood delicacies’ from various Indian states to your homes directly.
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Dippankar Halder, founder of Jalongi and a retail veteran, informs ‘we focus hard on building sourcing capabilities to ensure range and quality, in terms of taste and freshness, and all our endeavors are to constantly reduce the time between the catch and the consumers.
Why Fish-on-Demand as a startup?
If you compare, the Fish & Seafood sector today stands at the same point where the Milk supply chain was before the pre Dr. Varghese Kurien era. It faces similar challenges like fragmented sources, lack of collection & aggregation mechanism and organized cold chain between supply and demand markets.
India has a large fish eating population but most of us are restricted to local produce due to limited sourcing abilities of the local wet market traders. Perishability without cold chain makes many items not getting access to demand markets. Multiple layers of intermediaries add handling, wastage and cost.
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There is a tremendous opportunity to unlock value by building a national supply chain network at a scale and that is the purpose behind Jalongi. We believe that value released will help farmers and fisherman as well as will end consumer. It brings in the range and quality products for the consumer at better rates and, also, ensures regular business and a steady income for fish farmers and fishermen.
With my earlier experience of successfully establishing the first organized Fish & Seafood chain in Mumbai, I understood consumer demands and business challenges to convert my vision into a multicity business.
How do you differentiate your business to other meat retailers?
Fish & seafood retail is a far intricate business in comparison to meat retail. Most of the Chicken & Meat retailers have one core product, while a business like ours has over 100 varieties to meet the consumer demands. 80% of our products are sourced directly ensuring top quality and freshness every day.
Also, in comparison, the poultry, which has the largest share in meat segment, has a far more organized sourcing base for decades with leading players like Godrej, Venkys, Suguna and Zorabian Chicken amongst others.
Our sourcing ranges from coast to coast and we had to build our own supply chain network to facilitate faster delivery of the produce, in absence of any existing options.
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We have built a strong supply chain network that helps us source directly from over 8 states now. We are adding another 8 states in next 3-6 months.
How has been the demand for your business?
We have fulfilled over 500,000 orders till date with over 75% of our orders coming from repeat customers. We are favoured primarily for our variety of over 100 top quality products, with each order that are custom cut, clean & washed pan-ready. In terms of annual growth, we have witnessed a 3X plus growth during pandemic and we continue growing. Demand is not a problem in this sector, its’ all about sourcing and managing the supply chain.
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We are happy with the building blocks that we have been able to put in place, to reach our business objective of building a INR 1000 crore business by 2027, profitably.
Your brand design is quite relatable to business?
Our brand collaterals were designed by Arani Halder; a New York based Visual Designer & Illustrator whose aim was to create a brand identity that is fresh, trustworthy and reliable, much like the service and product that we deliver.
The illustrations are meant to be relatable for a wide range of audience and attempt to deliver the message of the brand, that is, to deliver fresh fish in the comfort of your own home.
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The logo was designed to be minimal but recognizable. It is meant to sum up the fresh and modern nature of the brand without taking away from the visuals of the product.
