India’s $5 trillion economy without formal retail food business will be a distant dream
India’s coveted objective of $5 trillion economy will remain unaccomplished if the 90% unorganised retail food business is not transformed into the formal segment, said Vivek Gupta, co-founder of Udaan – a B2B e-commerce app, Wednesday.
“Hurdles faced by those in the unorganised sector are about adding value, ensuring product accessibility and churning funds quickly,” Gupta underlined on the first day of the two-day India Food Forum.
Citing a case study of an entrepreneur with 3 rice mills, Gupta lamented that there has been no efforts to brand and reach out with value addtion like poha or rice flakes.
However, this comes even as India’s agriculture exports doubled to USD 60 billion in 2022 from USD 30 billion in 2018, said Satish Thaker, Director – Brand Engagement, Elasticrun – a B2B rural Indian platform.
“The value conscious new age retail Indian consumer does not believe easily unless he checks technology to validate it,” Thaker said.
Post-pandemic, the India Food Forum in its 15th edition received overwhelming response with several food products being launched along with active participation from retailers and food brands.
Earlier at the Forum, India’s online supermarket Big Basket’s official said it will partner with a Demand Side platform (DSP) in the next few months.
“Our tie-up with DSP partner will allow brands to advertise on the open internet and reach out to high intent, relevant Big Basket audiences as also measure the effectiveness,” said Kishore Kumar, Head – Intelligence, Big Basket.
So far among the online retailers, Amazon has a DSP that allows advertisers to buy video and display ads at scale, using programmatic ad purchasing and harnessing the power of shoppers.
It facilitates advertising inventory data, programmatic ad purchasing automatically selects which digital ad slots to buy, and at what price.
The DSP tie-up will allow brands to come up to the Big Basket platform and also help them understand consumer choices and preferences, Kumar said.
