India is emerging market for cold pressed oils: Thara Jayan
India is emerging market for cold pressed oils: Thara Jayan

How the idea of ganyaagro.com did come into existence? Also shed light on your journey so far?

I was working in IT sector for almost  eight years before going on sabbatical to look after kids. To better utilize this period, I was exploring multiple options but certainly I did not thinking of starting a venture related to cold pressed oils. Though we have our own farm along with manufacturing facility and we used to produce oils in small quantity mainly for our personal use. Then I start sharing these handmade cold pressed oils with my family and friends and they loved it because of it therapeutic benefits.  So, their positive feedback gave me the courage to scale-up this business. We formally register this company in January 2017, and launched our online portal. I started this venture with a mission that good product should reach to people.  

How do you see the market of cold pressed oils is evolving in this country?

There is a lot of awareness when it comes to organic product these days and mass movements such as jallikattu protest has spurted the consumption of organic products. People are now aware to use cold press oils in their daily cooking.  We source all the raw material from local farmers and making oil using very traditional method. We have done a lot of innovation in packaging because I don’t want to use regular plastic bottles.

Kindly shed light on your pricing strategy and product portfolio?

We are priced a notch above to what is available in the market because our product range is premium, and made from original raw material.  The product cost of high quality cold press oil is very high due to rigorous production process and the cost goes even higher in the case of sesame oil. Moreover,  it requires special treatment in packaging and shipping. And, if somebody is selling it on cheaper rates that means it might be contaminated oil or made with low quality raw material.

Initially, it was tough to justify high pricing since cheaper products were available on way cheaper rates. With increasing awareness and changing lifestyle people do understand that such products can’t be bought on cheaper rates. However, we are coming up with our own manufacturing unit in Chennai with this initiative we might be able to save some production cost and will pass on the benefit to end consumer.

We offer cold pressed coconut oil, cold pressed groundnut oil, and cold pressed sesame oil. We are looking to introduce cow ghee and brown sugar very shortly.

What kind of distribution model you have right now? Also, what are the plans to scale up the distribution?

Through our e-commerce model we sell pan India. Our maximum consumer base is located in Gujarat, Rajasthan and Delhi. In fact, we were also selling via Amazon.in but due to internal issues we have to hold this channel, which we hope to resume very shortly. We have also collaborated with few local offline stores in Chennai. Moreover, we are looking to appoint local distributors as the part of strategy to scale up the offline distribution.

Don’t you think working with local distributors will be challenging since you don’t have multiple production facilities? Can this product be stocked in bulk? Why don’t you look for opening your exclusive store?

Our products have the shelf life of six months, so it can be bought in bulk and supply locally. As of now, we are not thinking of opening an offline store; however, if somebody wants to open a franchise store, we will welcome such idea. We would also be open to the idea of regional distribution.

What kind of response you are generating from your online channel? Also shed light on percentage of returns?

Our packing and shipping is very efficient so we don’t see much returns. We ship all new products with complete six months shelf life; in fact, we try to ship the product within the month of manufacturing. Returning small amount of product is never an issue, for example, if somebody has bought a liter and did not like, we can exchange/return easily.  However, managing returns in case of distributorship would be impossible, so we would be very careful in selecting the local distributors.

What are the major delivery challenges to ensure safe delivery of the product? Is your products weather sensitive? What is ratio of order generation on monthly basis?

Product damage is the biggest obstacle in home delivery. Most of time the damage is done by the shipping companies only. We are doing a lot of innovation in packing to ensure the safe delivery of the products. Our products can be shipped and stored on room temperature. On an average, we ship about 80-100 liters oil on monthly basis.

  

 

 

 

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