Healthy business with juicy returns

How profitable and sustainable is the health food segment in the Indian F&B industry? The health food industry is one of the fastest growing categories in the F&B segment, and is pegged to have grown 30-35% over the past decade. Well, it’s time to make merry and raise the toast to this fast emerging concept of healthy eating and healthy serving.

Not just junkies like burgers and pizzas are dominating segment in the F&B business but health food serving category has evolved as high yielding business concept over the past decade. It is healthy; it is trendy and is a hot selling concept that has turned organised recently. The demand for healthy food and snack has created a niche for this category.

Due to the high demand of health food, F&B entrepreneurs are focused to service quality and balanced diet from their kitchens to the customers’ table. Kudos to our very own Yoga Guru Baba Ramdev, who is promoting the idea of healthy eating and healthy living to its core. Even his homegrown FMCG brand Patanjali has created a rage amongst the diet conscious lot. Patanjali Group is targeting revenues of about Rs 5,000-10,000 crore in the next few years. The brand has also joined hands with the Future group for organised retail in the country.

Baba Ramdev says: "We were looking for a swadeshi retail chain to sell our products and Future Group's Big Bazaar fitted the bill." While Kishore Biyani of Future Group is of the opinion: "We are looking at business worth Rs 1,000 crore with Patanjali in 20 months.”

Conducive market

Health food market encompass bakery, beverages, FMG and even new restaurant concepts. The fruit juice market is one of the fastest growing categories in the beverages segment, growing at a CAGR of over 25-30 per cent over the past decade. The growing trend of fitness and keeping oneself healthy is driving the juice business in India ahead with opening of juice/ smoothies bars and salad cafes in the major metro cities like Mumbai, Delhi, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Pune and Chennai.

Healthy takeaway

This sector primarily dominated by the unorganised players or the local vendors is cashing in on the rising demand. That is why many start ups are roping in this segment of F&B industry. Rivoli Sinha, an HM graduate who runs nine ‘Joost Juice’ bars in Delhi NCR and Mumbai shares her idea behind taking up this juicy concept. “It was during my family visit to Australia back in August 2008 when I first came across the concept of juice parlours and realised it as an interesting opportunity for a country like India, where there is the need for a healthy beverage segment. Joost Juice is standing strong in its fourth year and we have recently opened our first store at the Mumbai airport. We want to enter the West India market which will start from Mumbai and Pune operations this year and we are also looking for franchisee opportunity for our business,” shares Sinha.

Rs 5 to 30 lakh is the investment bracket to set up a health food serving joint. Franchise of the healthy F&B brands are readily available with different outlet formats depending upon the space availability.

Fresh facts

• Indian food industry is estimated to reach almost Rs 18 lakh crore in 2016 while the health food segment is pegged at Rs 1000 crore.

• As per Technopak reports, juicing business is standing at over Rs 1200 crore today. It is one of the most promising and profitable business.

• Baba Ramdev holds no stake in Patanjali Ayurveda. However, its products across 4,000 Patanjali outlets in the country are sold because of his name.

• Market analysts say that Patanjali’s products can pose risk to competition in the FMCG space as they are priced lower than those of other players in the market.

Brands: Patanjali, Down to Earth by Morarka Organic, Subway, Mr Sub, Quiznos, Juice Lounge, Joost Juice, Has Juices and More, Boost Juice, Falafal and Fraiche.