Having over 250 SKUs already, the company is aiming to introduce over 1,000 SKUs in the coming years
The Indus Valley’s healthy kitchenware has been warmly received by customers across India, including chefs, home cooks, health-conscious individuals, fitness enthusiasts, and food bloggers and influencers. The brand, which has already reached the kitchens of over four lakh families, is surging towards its mission of transforming 100 million kitchens in India into healthy ones.
Stirring it up
The Indus Valley was founded by Jagadeesh Kumar and his wife Madhumitha in 2016. It all started due to a mishap with plastic cookware in the oven that made the couple look for safe and chemical-free cookware. “However, we were surprised to find that no popular brand was offering what we were looking for. The available cookware was either unhealthy or unreliable. We wondered why there was no reliable healthy cookware brand in India. This was one of the key gaps in the Indian market which led us to think that there would be a huge demand for healthy cookware among Indians. And so The Indus Valley was born,” shares Jagadeesh. The brand showcases the duo’s determination to bring a positive difference in the way people cook food and use cookware. “India is rich in culture and cuisines, and we want to encourage healthy cooking practices by offering the best cookware that blends science with traditional wisdom and also is highly suitable for Indian cooking,” adds Jagadeesh.
Doing it right
The Indus Valley offers a wide range of premium- quality healthy kitchenware made from chemical-free and 100% food-safe materials such as cast iron, iron, triply stainless steel, wood, bronze and clay. The products also have no harmful chemical coatings and are toxin-free, long-lasting and ISO 9001 certiť ed. All of these features make the brand’s offerings compelling alternatives to other products out there made of unsafe metals and adulterated alloys and with chemical-loaded harmful coatings. “Each cookware that we introduce into the market goes through hundreds and hundreds of hours of product testing including stringent quality checks on the material used in the cookware, the food cooked in it and its taste. So customers can be completely assured that the cookware they are buying from The Indus Valley is of the ť nest quality,” shares Madhumitha.
Through D2C and e-commerce channels, The Indus Valley has been successful in making healthy kitchenware accessible to all Indians at the click of a button. “We are seeing traction for our brand from not only tier-1 cities but also from tier-2 and tier-3 ones.
Availability of speedy internet, increasing penetration of smartphones and growing familiarity with digital channels are silently bringing a revolution in the buying behaviour of Indian consumers. Additionally, due to rising health consciousness among people in this post-pandemic world, health and wellness have become the key purchasing criteria in many categories including ours,” says Jagadeesh. He expects the kitchenware category to continue growing at a double-digit rate in this decade.
The Indus Valley delivered 227% YoY growth last year. It is poised to hit the Rs. 200 crore-revenue mark by 2024. Having over 250 SKUs (stock-keeping units) already, the brand is aiming to reign as a healthy kitchenware brand in the industry by introducing over 1,000 SKUs in the coming years. It is also looking ahead to increase its market share on prominent e-commerce platforms such as Amazon and Flipkart.
“Furthermore, we are focused on growing aggressively in high-potential marketplaces such as JioMart and Tata Cliq. We also intend to explore more marketplaces focused on healthy and sustainable living such as OneGreen and Meolaa, to name a few,” shares Madhumitha.
At The Indus Valley, the team is constantly working on achieving better SEO ranking through organic means as well as maintaining price competitiveness in every sales channel. “Effective planning is being carried out regularly to optimise our marketing budget based on ROAS [return on ad spend] consideration, instead of absolute spend value. In view of that, we are keen on investing in ads that promise favourable results. These apart, we are focused on running awareness and conversion campaigns aggressively at the brand level, category level and SKU level through all major social media and e-commerce channels,” finishes Jagadeesh.
Brownie Points
- The Indus Valley delivered 227% YOY growth last year. It is poised to hit the Rs. 200 crore-revenue mark by 2024.
- The brand is receiving traction from not only tier-1 cities but also from tier-2 and tier 3 ones. It has already served over four lakh families at more than 10,000 pin codes across India.
- Having over 250 SKUs already, The Indus Valley is aiming to reign as a healthy kitchenware brand in the industry by introducing over 1,000 SKUs in the coming years.
First appeared in The India D2C Yearbook 2022
