Chennai, July 08, 2021: WayCool Foods, India’s fastest growing Agri-commerce company, on the occasion of its 6th foundation day announced that they have crossed the INR 1000 cr ARR (Annual Recurring Revenue) milestone and are well on the path to expanding into newer markets. WayCool, will be expanding its reach into western India and the Middle East.
Implementing deep tech and automation has enabled WayCool to successfully create a World Class, Sustainable Supply Chain. Apart from increasing the overall efficiency by 3x, advanced technology has also allowed WayCool, even in pandemic conditions, to service its base of 100,000 customers across the retail space, HoReCa and other verticals with fresh produce, staples and dairy products. Further, the company now works with a base of 80,000 farmers across south India, not just through their commercial partnerships but also through their agricultural extension program, Outgrow, to increase their incomes by as much as 30%. The company yesterday launched an upgraded version of Outgrow, its multilingual app that provides a range of services to its farmers, such as soil testing, AI based disease identification, market price benchmarks, weather inputs and videos that share good agricultural practices.
Speaking on the occasion of the 6th Foundation Day, Mr. Karthik Jayaraman, Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder, WayCool Foods & Products Pvt Ltd, said, “We have achieved many milestones this year despite the challenges, and have crossed an ARR of INR 1000 crore in June. This represents a 4X growth over the same time last year, and puts us on track to achieving our annual revenue goals. We have also increased our customer base by 4x in the last 1 year. Over the next few years, we plan to further invest in, and leverage deep tech and automation to enhance our efficiency. We will also be expanding our sales footprint to Western India and the Middle East”
Elaborating on expanding reach to Western India and Middle East, he added “Entering western India specifically Maharashtra is a logical next step since we anyway work deeply for sourcing in Maharashtra and have one of our strongest bases there. Separately, the Middle East has had deep relationships with India for millennia, and is keen to build food security. India is the natural partner for the Middle East in this quest. Given WayCools strong sourcing networks coupled with our next-gen tech integrated supply chain, we believe we are well positioned to fulfil the region’s requirements. In addition, the large Indian diaspora becomes a natural market for our products”.
At WayCool, many unique methods have been adopted in order to increase efficiency such as – Intelligent cross-docking for dry groceries, AI-led grading of grains & pulses and robotised handling of fresh produce. All of these have helped save 70% on working hours making WayCool 50% more efficient than the industry standards.
“These innovations and many more will help us further streamline our state-of-the-art supply chain and add more farmer partners. Currently, our productivity per team member is 1.5 times that of the industry average. Our target it to take this up to 5X. To do this, our focus will be on further expanding our technology in automated grading and sorting, as well as robotized material handling. We will also be investing in highly automated dry grocery warehouses to dramatically improve pick accuracy, pick velocity and productivity in the dry grocery supply chain as well.” added Mr. Karthik.
WayCool’s technology platforms as well as industrial automation solutions have been built by their 150 person in-house technology team. While the operations team at WayCool also faced tremendous challenges, the technology built by these teams played a pivotal role in the exponential growth as they seamlessly sustained the business. Owing to the tireless efforts from WayCool’s teams and stakeholders along the supply chain, WayCool has been able to provide fresh quality produce, staples and dairy products. Further, the company has recently launched their branded range, with brands such as Madhuram, Freshey’s, and Kitchenji across several key markets. In order to sustain the momentum and grow to the next phase, WayCool will also be expanding their workforce from 1250 to 3000 (growing at 2.5X) in the next few years.
