Ravi Kapoor, founder and chief executive officer of the brand shares the brand’s journey, strategies and growth plans
Chef Sanjeev Kapoor is among the most popular celebrities in the country, made famous by his cookery show Khana Khazaana. His work earned him a Padma Shree and the title of ‘Best Chef of India’ by the Government of India. Whatever the Chef lent his name to, became an instant hit. So when he launched Wonderchef with serial entrepreneur Ravi Saxena, it too found an eager audience.
Today, Wonderchef appliances are available at 20,000 touchpoints across channels in India as well as in the US. The brand has grown steadily and profitably, focusing on building a direct-to-consumer network, rather than rushing into opening stores. It sells its products on the basis of quality, innovation and demonstration rather than hype.
In an exclusive interaction with IndiaRetailing, Ravi Kapoor, founder and chief executive officer of the brand shares the brand’s journey, strategies and five-year plans. Edited excerpts…
How did the association with Chef Sanjeev Kapoor come about?
I’m an electronics engineer with an MBA degree. I had nothing to do with food until I went to France and convinced Sodexo to bring the meal voucher to India. At Sodexo, I developed the gift voucher and some smart card-based solutions. Then I suggested starting a food catering business. We managed to build a Rs500 crore business within 6-7 years. We were managing 500 corporate kitchens across India with an army of 1,000 chefs. It taught me a lot about the food business. Then, I joined the Landmark Group as the managing director of the company’s hotels, leisure and restaurants business, helping the owner realise his dream of owning a hospitality business featuring hotels, restaurants and coffee shops. We launched a chain of budget hotels called City Max Hotels, and a coffee chain Gloria Jeans Coffee.
It was while with Landmark Group that my association with Chef Sanjeev Kapoor began. In 2006, we approached him to create restaurants together. We became friends instantly and he gave me his master franchise to develop the Yellow Chilli restaurants for the Landmark Group.
I then decided to take the entrepreneurial leap and start my kitchen appliance brand since I understood food and equipment. And I again approached Chef Kapoor to lend me his brand name and recipes forever because he is the Amitabh Bachchan of India’s culinary business. We launched Wonderchef in 2010.
How has the journey been?
When we started, it was one year after the global financial crisis. So the possibility of funding in a traditional business was slim. So I decided to use the time to first learn the game because even though I understood food and retail, I did not understand equipment retail. For the first 3-4 years, I was marketing and distributing some 10 Italian and French brands in India. I realised that even though these brands were three to four times more expensive than Indian products, there was a market for them.
I was also visiting their factories and understanding possibilities. Once we had developed A distribution network, we decided to launch our own brand in 2015. We then invested in a couple of factories–gave them tooling and the Intellectual Property Rights.
Were the factories in India?
No, first in Italy, then in South Korea, then China and now in India. It was an interesting journey because India was not ready for that. We focused on quality cookware. Where Indian companies gave a six-month guarantee on their coating, we started by giving two- year, three-year and five-year guarantees with free replacement… we ended up replacing just one in 1,000 products. Such was the process and the quality of materials used. The aim is to empower Indian homemakers to cook in a healthy, convenient and tasty way–health, taste, and convenience are the fundamentals on which our business is based.
Our Nutri-Blend became a star product, made from unbreakable material and which packs power equivalent to 750 Watts in a compact, size remains our top seller, even today. Its success gave us a boost to innovate more. We launched many firsts in India–cold pressed juicer, gas tandoor, mini chopper and manual chopper among others. We were able to develop such products as we kept the customer at the centre. Now, our range is getting sophisticated.
In what way?
We launched a smart pressure cooker, which doesn’t require monitoring how many times the steam is thrown out. It comes with recipes built-in, you just need to select the recipe, put in the ingredients and it does the rest. Also, three years back, we launched coffee machines in response to the growing coffee culture in the country. We have 10 models–from a cold press machine of Rs 1,000 to a fully automatic one priced at Rs 92,000. Last year’s numbers surprised us: We sold 65,000 coffee machines in India at an average price of Rs5,500. Now, we are launching an automatic cooking robot in the US, which takes just 8 inches of space and cooks the recipes fed into it. We launched it in India first and met with surprising success…we sold 2,000 units in just three months at a price of Rs 50,000 per unit.
How does it work?
It is an Internet of Things (IoT) device and is connected to your smartphone. It has 250 Sanjeev Kapoor recipes from various cuisines stored in it. Its interface is just like a smartphone, on which one can choose a recipe. Once you select the recipe, it will tell you the ingredients which you have to keep ready. You don’t even have to cut and chop them. It then runs itself and starts the entire process, chopping where required, grinding where needed and making a perfect dish. It is connected to your mobile where you can keep checking the cooking time left. Pressure, temperature, speed everything is controlled to give a perfect process, consistently.
We are selling it in the US through our website and Amazon and have already sold 100 pieces since the soft launch a few days back. This tells you the flavour of our product profile.
So what has been your distribution strategy?
We have 400 stock-keeping units today. But before opening exclusive stores, we first started being available through shop-in-shops in modern trade–large department stores like Shoppers Stop, Hometown, and Home Centre as ours are premium products. Today, we have about 2,500 modern trade touchpoints.
The other route we took was direct marketing through a network of ladies entrepreneurs. Today, there’s Wonderchef network of 82,000 ladies. We support them, encourage them and supply to them through a separate network of distributors. At that time, it used to account for 50% of our sale. Today, it is about 70% of our sale. We also were available on TV shopping networks like Home Shop 18 and Shop CJ, which were once popular. We then slowly started on other channels like our website, even before Amazon launched this category. In fact, we became their first partners and helped them develop this category. Slowly, e-commerce became important for us. Today, it is about 30% of our business, out of which 30% comes from Q-commerce.
After Amazon, we started our stores. And, we also became available in Army canteens, which gives us a business of Rs 60 crore through 3,500 outlets. We then started general trade, about five years back and today we have around 14,000 touchpoints. In all, we are available across 20,000 physical touchpoints.
What has been your store opening strategy?
We opened in malls as they match our positioning and customer profile. However, we also open outside malls in catchments where malls are not present like South Mumbai. We have stores in every good mall. Also, we limited our size to 500 to 700 sq. ft. Today, we have about 25 odd stores.
What is your growth strategy?
We will focus on q-commerce and continue to be efficient and grow. We have been growing at a rate of 20% to 25% every year whereas other players have been registering degrowth. We closed financial year (FY) 2024 at around Rs 700 crore, we will close FY 2025 at Rs 800 crore. And we will go for an IPO in two year’s time.
Who is the closest competitor?
Most leading players in the segment compete with us on some product or the other since we are all in kitchenware. We stand out because of our innovation. We have developed the ability to demonstrate. Demonstration is the common threat across our channels.
How do you market yourself?
We only spend on below the line (BTL) and don’t engage in above the line advertising (ATL) at all. We only spend about 4%-5% on marketing, including digital, which is why we have been a profitable company for several years. And for building such a large brand, a total loss plus CapEx in our lifetime has been less than Rs 50 crore.
What is next for Wonderchef in the next five years?
We will focus on growing online. In general trade, we have the potential to be in about 50,000 outlets, which we will try to achieve. We will go ahead slowly expanding our reach. Also, to get listed. We will probably be twice our size in the next three to five years and we will be in the top three brands in the kitchenware industry. And how are we going to get there? Through innovation, smart appliances and expansion of our distribution.
