Making Disparate Insights, Actionable
The journey of Rebel Foods
“American fast food chain Wendy’s is capitalising on the growing appetite for food delivery in India especially as covid casts uncertainty on near-term prospects of dining out market. It announced plans to expand its presence in India over the next decade in collaboration with its master franchisee Sierra Nevada Restaurants and cloud kitchen specialist Rebel Foods, to open physical restaurants and cloud kitchens here.”
One highlight of this announcement is that how cloud kitchens are coming out of the shadows and playing a central role in scaling up of food brands. The premise of this essay is built on the journey of Rebel Foods and how disparate insights played a role in its transformation to a cloud kitchen service, and how it is becoming a launch pad for a slew of brands.
The foodtech industry is at an inflection point in India. As access to technology gets easier, the industry is seeing increased adoption — from restaurants to home chefs to customers.
From an operations perspective, India has the highest rent-to-sales ratio in the world. Unless one has deep pockets, it is difficult to build a QSR (Quick Service Restaurant) business in India. This article focuses on the role played by disparate insights, which helped define Rebel Foods (aka Faasos).
Pivoting Rebel Foods
Rebel Foods is the world’s largest chain of Online Restaurants. It operates a multi brand, cloud kitchen model in India. It had humble beginnings in the year 2011, when it launched as Faasos.
In the early days of Rebel Foods, they had a limited presence in few select cities in India and were seeing a lot of traction. Until then, it was operating as a QSR, similar to a McDonalds or Dominos, with flexibility of dine-in and takeaway/delivery options as well. Their key offering was a wrap/roll, which was resonating a lot with their target segment — it was affordable and can be eaten on the go.
As part of the review and planning activity, there were two key insights which struck them and that defined their future growth trajectory.
- While looking at their cost structure, the team realised that 75% of their orders came from delivery
- A related survey showed 73% of the customers knew their brand, but hadn’t seen the outlets.
When we look at both these insights, there is a realisation that people were primarily associating Faasos as a ‘food on demand’ brand. These insights became the foundation of translating Faasos in a delivery only model — a pre-cursor to the cloud kitchen was born.
They were surely having traction in their outlets, but unit economics was creating a hinderance for scaling up their business. In hindsight, this is a straight forward decision considering how digital has shaped the world. But back then it was not an easy decision to take.
This revolutionised the company and was able to launch a series of own brands across various cuisine categories — all operating from a central kitchen, providing the economies of scale.
Rebel Launcher — Enabling ecosystem
Sometime in 2019, Rebel Foods launched a “Launcher Program” aka Rebel Launcher, whereby they offered their operating system (kitchens, technology, distribution channels and supply chain) to food entrepreneurs to scale their brands. On significant evidence of traction in the form of positive unit economics, would lead to potential funding.
Rebel foods has a footprint of over 320 kitchens / distribution centres in 35 cities in India, and a growing network internationally.
The last few years have been interesting times for the food industry, with foodtech transforming the industry. The unprecedented crisis induced by the pandemic provided another opportunity. A lot of restaurants and outlets had to shut down on account of the lockdown and in lot of cases a prolonged shutdown had the potential to inflict long lasting damages.
Considering the situation, Rebel Launcher expanded their platform and invited food companies whose outlets had closed, to operate from their kitchens. They already had the expertise of operating this model with upcoming brands, albeit with a smaller footprint. But their core expertise of running their own multi-brand cloud kitchen operations gave them the conviction of opening the platform to outside brands, as well.
Leading brands like Naturals Ice Cream, Mad Over Donuts, and more are now delivering from their kitchens. This is a win-win situation, both for the brands and Rebel Foods, at least in the short term.
This is indeed an interesting development for the foodtech industry, as a whole. The emergent reality will have “Digital First” and “DIY” as a core value proposition. And initiatives such as these, surely provide a good platform to kick start and scale-up brands and businesses.
To sum up, the story of Rebel Foods yet again reiterates the power of disparate insights. When combined together, they can shift the perspective of decision-makers and provide conviction to take a leap of faith (future-proofing opportunities.)
Until next time!
~ Sajid
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