How Spice Story is Making Chutneys a Household Staple Food by Offering Authentic Regional Recipes 

The people of India have grown up with sides and chutneys as a big part of their food repertoire. They practically consume chutney with every meal. However, strangely enough, there is not a single brand in the country that can claim to offer a range of chutneys to the consumer. Think about it, we buy ginger garlic paste from the market what stops us from buying a chutney, which surely is a little more difficult to put together? Sure enough, there are local sweet shops that sell chutneys with snacks, but that’s about it.

To bridge this supply and demand gap, Spice Story was launched by Soumyadeep Mukherjee and Gayatri Gogate in 2019.

“We started our wanting to create a hot sauce brand. However, as we looked at the market, we realized that Chutneys is a huge white space, with no national players. This Aha- Ha! moment led to the beginning of our journey. We created three products, trialed them, and got great responses. There is nothing stronger than consumer acceptance to keep us motivated and believing that we are on the right path. 3 years and 12 flavors, we are stronger and growing,” asserted Soumyadeep Mukherjee, Founder & CEO, and Gayatri Gogate, Co-founder and CMO of Spice Story.

“We are a consumer-first food brand that curates, creates, and offers authentic flavors to customers. The three things that set us apart are:-
- authentic recipes 
- wide range – something for everyone
-  traditional tastes in modern-day easy-to-use bottles,” they further added. 

Currently, Spice Story offers 12 different variants from different regions of the country. All the recipes are authentic to the region they come from. For example, the Mango Mustard from Kolkata or the Mint Chutney from Delhi has a dash of regional flavors in them. The Sandwich Chutney brings alive Mumbai’s favorite street food. The brand has recently launched the world’s first ready-to-eat coconut chutney which has a 10-month shelf life and just needs to be poured out of the bottle. 

The other specialty includes the Liquid Nolen Gur which is a specialty date palm jaggery from West Bengal and was previously available only in the winter season, however, looking at its popular demand it is now available throughout the year.  
 
“We want to bring to the consumer traditional flavors in a modern-day convenient format. Hence the chutneys are packed in squeezy bottles – making them easy to pour and store,” they stated.

Retail Strategy

Today, the brand is available across all the key marketplaces and online grocery channels such as Amazon, Flipkart, Jiomart, bigbasket, Swiggy, and MilkBasket. Besides, its products are also available on the brand’s website.
 
“Omnichannel is the name of the game today. You want to be where the customer can find you and find you easily. You want to be recommended by people you trust. Be it an influencer or the local shopkeeper. While online will help build awareness and recognition, offline will help build presence and scale for a brand like ours. So, we continue to drive both as we speak,” they asserted. 

Expanding its global footprint, the products of the brand are also available on Amazon.com in USA and Canada and it is further planning to expand its operations to UAE and UK. 
 
Attractive Packaging

The products of Spice Story come in colorful and appealing packaging. The brand feels that chutney is a small flavor bomb and has the potency to make food interesting. Likewise, at Spice Story, it is all about creating fun food stories. The brand’s promise translates as its signoff - ‘The End of Boring’. The logo is a bright fun take on the brand’s spicy personality – A curious adventurer! Unexpected! Always out of the ordinary! Never Boring! and Unapologetically Fun! A hidden ‘surprise´ is always a part of it.

“The packaging takes the promise further bringing alive the authenticity of the place where the chutney comes from. At the end of the day, food is a sensory cumulation of multiple experiences which includes the place it came from, who cooked it, and whom you shared it with. We want to bring alive these experiences,” they asserted.

“On the practical side, we mustn’t forget that India is a land where the recipe and taste of tea change every 100km. Naturally, every region makes chutneys in its style and variation. It helps when we know beforehand what to expect,” they further added.

Future Plans

The Spice Story raised its first round of investment with Venture Catalysts and then a subsequent round with Agility Ventures and Lets Venture.
 
The brand plans to achieve an ARR of Rs 18 crore by end of this financial year and further plans to grow 25X by 2025 i.e. achieving the Rs 100 crore mark by 2025 through new product introductions via line and category extensions. 
 
“While we are very actively pursuing e-commerce, our offline presence is in only 8 cities as of now and we intend to go deeper in these cities this year. We also plan to add technology to augment our presence. Having established a footprint, we will work on a strong communication plan. But at the core of it, all will be to build a consumer-first omnichannel food brand,” they concluded.