BENGALURU: Health and fitness startup CureFit has entered the ready-to-eat meal segment and is strengthening its packaged food business to revive its foodtech arm EatFit, which was impacted by the Covid-19 outbreak.
Along with this, EatFit will also enter the protein and workout supplements market, with new products exclusively available on its platform.
EatFit services are available in just four of the 18 cities now, including Delhi, Bengaluru and Hyderabad, as food delivery volumes took a massive hit during lockdown imposed to contain the spread of covid-19, said Ankit Nagori, co-founder, CureFit.
Online orders on the EatFit platform fell from more than 50,000 daily orders during pre covid-19 days to just 15,000 currently. CureFit has also shut all its quick service restaurants (QSRs) for the short-term, barring a few that will be used as cloud kitchens, as uncertainty over the spread of covid-19 grows.
CureFit has launched its ready-to-eat meals to take on rivals such as MTR and expects this category to make up 50% of its food-tech revenues by December-end.
“We are now creating products that thrive in the post-covid world and will focus on packaged foods and ready-to-eat categories," Nagori said.
CureFit, which has launched rajma and dal curries, will add two new SKUs (stock keeping units) every month to this category until December and focus predominantly on Indian cuisine. Apart from its EatFit platform, it has also partnered with food delivery firms Zomato, BigBasket, and Swiggy to sell its products. In the past few months, EatFit also increased its focus on packaged goods, such as immunity-building drinks and juices, as it sees renewed demand for these products.
“We have seen a change of consumer habits for food and, now, customers are buying in bulk for families. There is also a shift towards desserts during weekends and eat out ‘entertainment’ food options such as pizzas. Keeping that in mind, we have ramped up our dessert offerings with in-house brand Li’l Sin," Nagori said.
EatFit is looking to co-brand protein and workout supplements products with a few partners.
Earlier, it had tied up with cold-pressed juices retailer Raw Pressery to launch its RAWfit line of juices and with yogurt snacking brand Epigamia.
A large part of EatFit’s business also comes from offline channels, including Cult kiosks and EatFit’s QSR chain, which were severely hit, by the covid-19 crisis. Its food subscriptions have also been impacted.
“Subscription was 35-40% of our orders, a sizable chunk of which were offices. Office subscription is down by 90%, and even lunch subscription is down by 80%. Overall, the intensity of subscriptions has gone down significantly and people are making single-orders," said Nagori.
In March, CureFit had raised Rs832 crore from Singapore’s Temasek, besides existing investors Accel and Chiratae
Click here to read the Mint ePaperLivemint.com is now on Telegram. Join Livemint channel in your Telegram and stay updated
