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Eat.fit, which was hived off from its parent entity Cure.fit last October, has launched a progressive web app (PWA) which will be marketed during the upcoming IPL season. The start-up is also preparing to expand its cloud kitchen footprint (which was downsized from 65 kitchens to 16 during the pandemic), introduce smaller sub-brands of food and beverages, and raise funds for an all-India expansion by the year-end, Ankit Nagori, co-founder, Eat.fit, told BusinessLine .
“We launched a PWA, a light app for Android, in January, which has seen 25,000 downloads and a few hundreds of orders. We will start marketing the PWA actively during the upcoming IPL season with a new brand ambassador” he said.
The start-up has no plans to spin off into a separate app, but will continue to sell on the Cure.fit app. In addition to selling on its own channel — Eatfit.in — it also sells on Amazon, Swiggy, Zomato and Dunzo.
Recovery
At the peak of the pandemic in June 2020, Eat.fit was at 10 per cent recovery compared with pre-Covid levels. It is now at 35 per cent recovery and expects to get to 70 per cent in the next 12 months. Eat.fit contributed to 30 per cent of Cure.fit’s revenue pre-Covid.
“We will continue to sell on the Cure.fit app in the long term, because it is a very important channel for health customers — good health cannot happen without nutrition. We also sell at our Cult fitness centres, where we have set up walk-in counters for Eat.fit. We have about 20 such counters in Bengaluru, and once Covid restrictions ease, we will open counters in other cities, too” Nagori said.
The start-up currently has 16 active cloud kitchens in Bengaluru and Coimbatore. More will be opened in Hyderabad and Mysuru in the next three months. “The idea is to slowly ramp up our cloud kitchen footprint to 20 by June 2021 and 40 by April 2022 with a South market focus and then go back to the North market later, because we have large operations, a cluster kitchen and factory here,” he added.
The start-up is looking to launch smaller brands within the Eat.fit umbrella for beverage categories such as coffee, smoothies and healthy desserts. It has already introduced healthy versions of new categories like biryani and burgers, and will introduce multi-grain pizzas before IPL. Plans are on to launch a healthy Asian cuisine in the next 12-18 months.
Eat.fit has a team of 200 people which will be ramped up to 400 people with 40 kitchens by April 2022. As demand picks up, the start-up has been rehiring delivery boys and kitchen staff who were laid off during the pandemic. It had laid off 300 Eat.fit staff pan India.
From eight Eat.fit restaurants pre-Covid, the company is down to one each in Bengaluru and Coimbatore. “We will be re-launching at least two more in the next 3-4 months,” said Nagori, who believes that offline presence is good for branding, marketing and top-of-the-mind recall for customers. The start-up is looking to raise funds by the year-end, which it will use to launch new cuisines and launch in new cities.
“The combined population of the five cities that we intend to operate in — Bengaluru, Mysuru, Chennai, Coimbatore and Hyderabad — is 30 million. At least 10 per cent of those people are willing to spend extra money to eat healthy food. Our total addressable market (TAM) is 3-4 million people easily in these cities. With our average order value at a healthy ₹300, our TAM is a pretty good number.”
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