Tender ‘cuts’ into meat of the matter, with omni-channel model

And that’s exactly where Nishanth Chandran, the Founder and CEO of TenderCuts (GFM Retail Pvt Ltd), a Chennai based omni-channel meat delivery start-up believes the moolah will come from.

With an aim to disrupt the market with its promise of delivering fresh, antibiotic and hormone-free meat, tech entrepreneur Nishanth founded TenderCuts in January 2016. The company has partnered with farming and fishing communities within Tamil Nadu to ensure that the meat travels the shortest distance to reach the end consumer, cutting down on food miles and boosting the market for local produce. 

Giving us an idea of how the startup was incepted, Nishanth says, “My search for hygienic meat products, and a choice of cuts usually led me to the hypermarkets which meant long checkout queues and unnecessary delays. The alternative was the unorganised market, which was severely lacking in quality. This inspired me to set up a retail omni channel business with both an online and offline presence.” The two offline stores are present in Anna Nagar and Thoraipakkam. 

Hyper local sourcing is one of the focus areas of TenderCuts as most of the meat products are procured from southern TN. The seafood products are sourced from ports of Chennai, Cuddalore and Thoothukudi, among others. The company boasts of state-of-the-art systems for inventory management, warehousing, storage and distribution. Nishanth tells us, “We have around 19,000 registered customers, and 80 per cent of our clientele comprises of repeat buyers. On Sundays, the number of orders goes up to about 1,000.” 

The business was kick-started with a capital of Rs 3.5 crore, obtained from the proceeds of the sales of Nishanth’s previous company EBS Payments, which was bought over by a French concern. A further infusion of Rs 4.6 crore was made into TenderCuts, courtesy Suresh Krishn, the MD of Isha Homes. 

According to figures from the Union Govt’s sample registration system baseline survey 2014, that appeared in Huff Post India (How India Eats), the percentage of non vegetarians in Tamil Nadu is 97.65 per cent while vegetarians make up for 2.35 per cent of the total population. Nishanth says, “The poultry market of India is growing at a CAGR of about 20 per cent. As of now, we have covered 80 per cent of the Chennai market. In the next six months, we plan to cover the whole city with our distribution network, set up more offline stores and also look into offering gourmet meats.” 

TenderCuts is currently growing at the rate of about 100 per cent every three months and Nishanth envisages that the firm will be worth Rs 120 crore in the next three years.