When you need fresh milk delivered at 7 AM, what’s your go-to? Well, Country Delight!
But did you know, Country Delight started as a part-time project in 2011 and is now a business worth INR 6800 Cr!
It all kicked off with a simple but powerful pledge—fresh, unadulterated milk delivered straight from farm to home! Country Delight’s founders, Chakradhar Gade and Nitin Kaushal, were on a mission to provide high-quality milk directly to consumers’ doorsteps through a subscription-based model.
And believe it or not, they started with just 50 4-legged milk-givers, cattle of course!
Fast forward to today, and it’s not just milk they’re delivering! Country Delight clocked INR 1380 Cr in FY24, marking a stellar 46% rise in revenue compared to FY23. Clearly, their full-stack farm-to-doorstep model has been nothing short of a game-changer.
Let’s dive in!
With freshly infused capital at their disposal, Chakradhar and Nitin took the challenge head on!
In Retrospect…
The biggest challenges in the initial days were:
🔹 Procurement of milk
🔹 Fixing last-mile delivery
🔹 Cracking customer acquisition
🔹 Building scalability
By 2015, after burning through a whopping 70% of their bootstrapped funds, the Country Delight founders were at a crossroads. Despite their best efforts, they couldn’t crack the “one-size-fits-all” solution to their operational challenges. Things were looking dicey.
But just when it seemed like they were on the verge of collapse, Chakradhar and Nitin did what all great entrepreneurs do—they bet big! They turned to family and friends for extra cash and then diluted 10% equity to raise a seed round of INR 3 Cr from Rehan Yar Khan of Orios Ventures. With fresh capital in hand, they went all in!
Borrowing Chakradhar’s words from an interview, “Procurement was killing us. We had to optimise the supply chain to increase our margins, and the only way was to leverage tech!”
Decoding The Growth Pillars Of Country Delight
With freshly infused capital at their disposal, Chakradhar and Nitin took the challenge head on!
Masterstroke #1 – Taking Full Control Of Supply Chain
Initially, Country Delight was bad at managing the cattle. As a result, milk production dipped and they weren’t able to keep up with the subscription-based demand!
When You Can’t Produce Your Own Ingredients, Source It Locally!
Country Delight has taken farm-to-home delivery to a whole new level by partnering with over 250 small and medium-sized dairy farms across India. This close-knit collaboration allows them to monitor the entire milk production process like a hawk—from ensuring the cows are munching on top-quality feed to overseeing strict hygienic milking practices. And the best part? They cut out the middlemen, saving a solid 15-20% in distributor margins!
This smart move doesn’t just cut costs—it also ensures every packet of milk is traceable right back to the farm it came from.
Nectar In Milk Processing Facilities?
You can’t just pour raw milk into a carton and call it a day—there’s a whole process to ensure quality and safety! At Country Delight, every drop of milk goes through a stringent journey. It starts with milk separation, then moves on to pasteurisation and homogenisation, followed by the culture stage, and finally, packaging. They don’t take shortcuts!
To make sure the milk remains top-notch, Country Delight developed an in-house app called Nectar, which keeps track of milk temperature throughout the entire supply chain. Paired with IoT devices, this tech infusion ensures the milk you receive is not only fresh but consistently high quality.
Solving For Last Mile Delivery Through Clustering
This precision and attention to detail are what keep Country Delight at the top of its game. By diving deep into customer data, the company optimises everything from delivery routes to logistics efficiency, making sure fresh milk reaches your doorstep by 7 AM. The key? They cleverly group customer cohorts based on geographical locations to streamline deliveries, thus reducing delivery times, costs, and wastage.
Masterstroke #2 – Trust Is Key To Winning Over Indian Consumers
When your business runs on a subscription-based model, the game is all about retention! And boy, does Country Delight know how to play it. With a three-year revenue retention rate of 65%, they’ve clearly built a fiercely loyal customer base. It’s no longer about winning new customers—it’s about keeping them coming back for more.
But how?
Transparent Test Results
Country Delight walks the walk! They go beyond testing their milk for quality; they make sure you know exactly what you’re consuming. Every customer has access to detailed lab reports through their mobile app, allowing them to see the specific test results for the exact milk batch they receive.
But that’s not all. They send you a milk testing kit on your first order!
QR Code Traceability On Each Milk Packet
When scanned, this QR code gives you a virtual tour of the very farm where your milk originated! Not only does this offer a firsthand look at the source of your milk, but it also strengthens the trust between the brand and its consumers.
This transparency builds confidence in customers who can now see the process, from how the cows are raised to how the milk is handled before it reaches their doorstep. It’s not just fresh milk—it’s milk with a story!
Masterstroke #3 – From A Milk Brand To A ‘Natural Foods’ Brand
By FY18, Country Delight was catering to Delhi NCR, Mumbai, and Pune, supplying a whopping 15,000 litres of milk daily. But, the brand had bigger ambitions.
With the supply chain running smoothly and their direct-to-home model proving successful, the founders decided it was time to expand their product line—because why not? They first ventured into dairy products like paneer and later, in 2021, boldly expanded into fruits and vegetables.
Here’s the kicker: they leveraged the same supply chain and procurement process! This smart expansion did wonders for their revenue. In fact, the company expects to break even by Q1 FY25, with a significant portion of revenue now coming from these new product categories.
Fast forward to today, 40% of business comes from non-milk products like fruits and vegetables, and they’re aiming to push this to 60-70% over the next few years! It’s clear that diversifying the product range while maintaining the efficiency of their supply chain was the growth strategy that set the brand apart.
The Final Straw!
Although Country Delight seems to have cracked the code for delivering fresh, unadulterated natural foods, their journey isn’t without its bumps. The two biggest challenges they face? CAC (Customer Acquisition Cost) and LTV (Lifetime Value).
Here’s the deal: acquiring a customer isn’t cheap, and for Country Delight, this cost is only recouped once the customer sticks around long enough to become a repeat buyer. That’s why retention is the secret sauce. The moment customers drop off, the company has to reinvest the same amount to bring in new ones—talk about a cycle!
And while they’ve nailed freshness and trust in their products, managing the balance between CAC and LTV is like walking a tightrope.
It’ll be interesting to see how Country Delight navigates these challenges!
Until the next one!