iD Fresh Foods Continues To Expand Portfolio With Addition Of Vada Batter And More

iD Fresh Food is in the process of expanding its product offerings and launching two more ready-to-cook batter in the coming months. The company is also aiming at a Rs. 1,000 crore revenue by 2020 with exports to US and UK as we reported earlier.

“We’re launching vada batter in the market in the next three months. We’re also looking at ragi dosa and idli batter,” P.C. Musthafa, co-founder and chief executive of iD Fresh Food told LiveMint. With this new ragi batter, the company is adding to the emergence of ragi as an alternative food source and as part of the health-food market that is growing in India and around the world.

Launched in 2006 as a small store, iD Fresh Food started in Bengaluru and have come a long way since. Now they’re experimenting with wet sambhar and chutney pre-mixes to the ready-to-cook batter and other products.

According to the report from LiveMint, the chutneys that iD Fresh has been introducing hasn’t worked out as well as expected. Not too long ago, the company launched tomato and coriander chutney, but withdrew the products a few months ago. Part of the reason being that customers weren’t ready to spend money on chutney as it was usually a side dish that came along with their main dish of idli, vada or dosa, Musthafa told them. Therefore, there might be experimentation with combo packs with their regular batter.

Earlier this year, it was reported that Premji Invest had invested $25 million in iD Fresh Foods, giving the investment company a 25% stake in the company.

In India, iD Fresh Food’s biggest markets are Bengaluru, Chennai, Hyderabad and Mumbai. Outside of India, the largest market is Saudi Arabia. The company expects a change in order of markets because Chennai consumers eat idli, dosa, etc. twice as much as Bengaluru consumers do in a week. While it’s hard to tap into the Chennai market because the average household is still more inclined to make their own batter, Musthafa believes that the conversion will happen soon enough.

He added by saying, “About 30-40 years back we used to buy whole wheat, wash it, dry it in sunlight, take it to the mill and then bring it back to make chapathis. We can’t tell this story to our kids now because they’ll laugh at it. And in the next 20 years, you will see the same thing happening in idly dosa batter as well.”