There is now a way to treat your taste buds with desserts and still keep the calories in check! Cocoberry, India’s first yogurt chain, has established the concept of healthy eating. The brand has opened 13 stores within a year of starting its operations and has elaborate expansion plans. In an interview with FE’s Avik Das, Cocoberry managing director
GS Bhalla talks about the company’s journey so far and its plans for the future. Edited excerpts:
What made you shift from the business process outsourcing (BPO) business to opening a yogurt chain?
Our first venture, an international healthcare BPO, was incepted in 2000. However, later in 2009, we started Cocoberry with the urge to venture into a new segment. As we felt that the food and retail sector was the most exciting avenue to explore considering the sudden growth it was experiencing, we landed up with a new concept of opening a yogurt chain.
What are the challenges you faced in establishing the brand in India?
In the initial stages, there were quite a few challenges. Access to adequate market information and research was one of the hurdles. In addition to that, lack of infrastructure, difficult access to capital, dearth of trained and qualified manpower, high rentals, absence of a cold chain infrastructure and unavailability of quality ingredients were few other challenges that I had to face.
To counter these, I decided to go the global sourcing route and simplify the product offering to make it scalable. To promote the brand and to build a cult following of customers, I used online and social media, which was and still is very effective.
You have stores in Delhi and Mumbai. By when do you expect to cover the entire country?
We started the operation with one store in Delhi. Today we have 13 outlets in Delhi, one in Mumbai and one in Chandigarh. We will increase our number of stores in Delhi and Mumbai. In addition to that, we will also enter cities such as Kochi, Bangalore, Jaipur, among others. We are looking at 50 to 60 outlets by the end of fiscal 2010-11 and will have our presence at 100 locations by the end of 2011.
How do you plan to market your brand? Are you planning any innovative strategies as Indian consumers are still not aware of such a product?
Frozen yogurt has gained substantial mind share as a healthy and yummy treat. We have been adopting innovative marketing initiatives to popularize it. One such initiative is promotion of the brand using social networking platforms. We have gained substantial mind share through the same. Apart from this, we have also received great support from the media to promote and popularize our offering. In addition, we have stringent quality measures to maintain the quality of our products thus winning the trust of our loyal customers.
Do you have any plans to introduce local flavours in different regions of the country?
We had started with international flavours like blueberry and strawberry and later added local flavours like mango and litchi.
You had plans to enter the south-east Asian and the Middle East markets. Has anything been finalized?
We are in the process of exploring international markets for the expansion and are in advanced stages of finalising the locations in some south east Asian countries as well as in the Middle East. To kick off our international operations, we are also planning for a joint venture and hope to launch 3-4 stores in the new geographies. We are looking at having more than 500 outlets in geographies like India, south-east Asia and the Middle East by 2015.
Have you zeroed in on any partners for the joint ventures?
We are in discussions with various organizations and individuals. It is still too early to reveal the details.
How has your performance been in the first quarter? What is your revenue target for the current fiscal?
We have achieved a turnover of Rs 5 crore in financial year 2009-10 and are targeting revenues of Rs 20 crore for financial year 2010-11. We have already achieved sales of Rs 4 crore in the first quarter of the current fiscal.