Meat consumption is growing and has become a vast market in India: Nishanth Chandran

TenderCuts boasts of being India’s first omni-channel fresh-cut meat company. Chennai based TenderCuts deals with mutton, sheep and lamb, chicken and fresh seafood and is licensed and follows the norms of WHO and FSSAI standards. The brand is growing fast each day with its FOCO (Franchisee owned company operated model).In a tell-all session with Nishanth Chandran, CEO, TenderCuts, we discovered more about the brand and what are the challenges and growth steps ahead.

Does TenderCuts only operate in Chennai? How do you operate at other areas?
TenderCuts launched their pilot operations in January 2016. We started with just one retail store in Chennai and had a pre-launch phase in September 2016, expanding deliveries to cover most parts of Chennai. We aim to expand to other cities by the year 2018.

Tell us about your franchise model?
Our franchise model works on FOCO (Franchisee owned company operated model).Since the business involves following stringent quality standards and handle perishable products, we will run the operations part of it. Hence, it will be a hassle free process of managing business giving attractive monthly returns.

How do you keep up the quality check with franchisee?
Since the operations are managed by the company, we have defined SOPs (standard operating procedures) in which quality checks are embedded at each level right from procurement, processing, packing and last mile delivery.

What kind of growth do you see in this sector as there are not many players in fresh cut meat and seafood franchise?
Meat consumption is growing and has become a vast market in India. The Chennai market alone has been estimated at potentially INR 2500 Crore and 8 Billion USD, in urban India. Not many players are in the fresh cut meat segment and TenderCuts is proud to be India’s first omni-channel fresh-cut meat company.We sell through retail stores, direct orders from our website and call centres and soon-to-be launched Mobile App. Our direct competition is the neighbourhood butcher shops.

How many outlets do you have? How many do you plan to open?
Currently we have six outlets in Chennai and have plans to expand to 20 to 30 outlets in Chennai and eventually move to Hyderabad and Bangalore by early 2018.

It’s been exactly one year. You came into existence in Jan 2016, what has been the biggest challenge?
One of our main challenges was to win the loyalty of the consumers and educate them, who regularly patronise the neighbourhood butcher shop. Although the meat sold in such places would be stale, fly & mosquito infested, unclean and cut in a slipshod way, home-makers and buyers still prefer their local butchers for reasons of familiarity and convenience.

Steps to be your franchisee?

• We are looking for Franchisee who can invest Rs 28 to 30 lakh and they can expect a RoI period of 1.9 to 2.2 years.
• We expect the businessmen/professionals to have a sound knowledge about local connect and needs of the customers and a detailed survey of the target area and the kind of footfall the store will attract after the commencement of operations.