BigBasket to invest Rs 500 crore on supply chain

“We are focusing significantly on strengthening our back-end farmer supply chain programme called Farmer Connect. Now, we are working with 1,800 farmers, and we will bring about 5,000 farmers into our fold in a year’s time,” he said here. 

“We ensure they get better prices, paid on time. About 85 per cent of our produce comes directly from farmers and we are going to strengthen that. We work closely with hotels, and restaurants as well as nearly 2,000 kirana stores. We want to deepen our engagement with farmers for the supply,” he added. 

“All our hubs are close to farming locations. We have about 26 warehouses in 30 cities,” he further said. 

The company is also aggressively growing its user base, eyeing 20 mn customers by 2020 from the 8 mn now. It also plans to invest in technology to further strengthen customer service areas and back-end efficiencies. 

The expected investment on all these projects would be up to Rs 500 crore. On profitability, Menon said last year it became operationally profitable in Bengaluru and Hyderabad. 

“In the next two months, three more cities including Kolkata, Chennai and Ahmedabad will be operationally profitable, and in six months all our cities should have broken even on a standalone basis,” he said.