Sumeru eyes Rs 250 cr in frozen food business

The brand launched 20 new products in the last eight months, on Thursday launched frozen gourmet meals in collaboration with Michelin-starred Chef Alfred Prasad, a collaboration, in keeping with the global trend of brands tying up with celebrated chefs to curate product lines for a larger consumer market.

The frozen food space in India has been growing at a rate of 24 per cent CAGR over the past few years Mithun Appaiah, CEO, Innovative foods, said “We want to disrupt the way consumers perceive and purchase frozen food in the country. The brand expanded into the frozen meal category the last year by launching parathas, rolls and kebabs, across 10 Tier 1 cities. We plan to strengthen the distribution network to 25,000 retail outlets across these metros.”

The brand has two manufacturing units in Kochi and one in Chittoor AP and the launch marks the growth of Sumeru’s product portfolio to 95 SKUs in the frozen food space. Appaiah adds, “Chennai is one of our top five markets nationally and the consumers in the state are tuned into global trends vis-à-vis frozen foods. We retail in more than 700 stores across Tamil Nadu.”

The official admits that one of the biggest challenges is end-to-end cold chain. Appaiah adds, the infrastructure available at the last mile delivery point – the retail store, is not up to the mark with respect to power supply and storage.”