The Original Gourmet Retailer

After the successful launch of its flagship store Godrej Nature’s Basket has recently launched its second store in the national capital. In an exclusive interview, Mohit Khattar, MD, Godrej Nature’s Basket talks about his venture into gourmet retailing.

Sahiba Sachdev (SS): What inspired Godrej to venture into gourmet retailing?

Mohit Khattar (MK): Nature’s Basket started off as just a fresh fruits and vegetable retailer in Mumbai, in 2005. After witnessing the huge opportunity in the area of gourmet retailing, we changed this model in 2007 based on a study done with KA Technopak.

SS: Gourmet retailing is still a new concept in India. How would you create a consumer base on gourmet products in India?
MK: The concept of gourmet retailing may be new in India, but experimentation with food is a age old practice. So while technically, gourmet retailing is still in its nascent stage in India, there is reasonably a large section of consumers who love and use such products and are willing to experiment with food from around the globe. However, with dearth of retailers especially in this category, we hope to fill this gap.

SS: How would you compare your expansion strategy during the past decade to your current expansion strategy?
MK: The next decade should definitely see further expansion of the existing chains in metros as well as in Tier I, Tier II and Tier III cities as well. Some of the biggest global names in the retail industry would also set up their chains here. With this would come, increased competition and a much better deal for the Indian consumer, at large. I see a huge expansion in the range of products available here, an improvement in the quality levels offered and needless to say a better value proposition being offered to the consumer.

SS: What is your expansion strategy in terms of location? Which all location are you considering for the expansion of the brand?
MK: Gourmet retailing unlike mass retailing is a lot about carefully choosing your product lines and about great service levels. We already operate eight gourmet stores in Mumbai. We have recently launched our flagship store in Delhi at D-15, Defence Colony earlier this month and our second store at Greater Kailash-II (M Block Market). We are planning to open few more stores in Delhi and NCR before we move on to the other metros. Delhi being the capital city and a bigger destination of fine and gourmet food consumption, we are considering one city at a time at the moment. Eventually, within short span of time, we are planning to launch in cities like Ahmedabad, Chennai and Bengaluru as well.

SS: Gourmet retail is more of a niche concept, what is your strategy in reaching out to not only SEC A1 but SEC A and B audiences also?

MK: Well, gourmet retail is for food lovers. We as a retailer specialise in authentic world food and have no ambition to cater to or limit ourselves to any specific socio-economic strata. Several people believe that stores like ours cater only to the very premium end but are surprised when they find our prices to be very reasonable. Having said that, the exposure and awareness of world food is higher amongst the higher SEC’s.

SS: What kind of partnerships are you looking at, which helps Nature’s Basket to foray into a bigger share in the gourmet market?
MK: The gourmet retail industry is not very large and we already have a commanding presence in it. Our performance levels over the last two years have been far superior to that of other players. As of now we are not looking at any specific partnerships.

SS: What are the current trends in the retail industry in general and especially in gourmet retail?
MK: With efforts to weed out the un-profitable stores, manpower resizing etc., the retail industry seems to be doing better over the last two quarters especially after the world economy started recovering. The down side is that most of the food retailers appear to be undifferentiated in their offerings with all of them attempting to position themselves as price warriors. In contrast, gourmet retailing never suffered any slump and has successfully gained year on year growth, even during the worst economic recession.

SS: What kind of investment has Godrej made in the venture?
MK: A unique venture like this requires a huge investment of time and effort in research, training, product sourcing and in service orientation more than the actual money. And Godrej has provided all of it.