The Delhi – based, cold – pressed juices startup, Fresh Food Concepts has secured US $ 2 million in pre series A round of funding from the Angel Investors, Siddhartha Gupta and Ashwin Chadha. This funding comes in the wake of the startup planning to expand the presence of its famous fruit juice brand, Juice Up throughout India. Fresh Food Concepts offers 100% pure, raw and fresh, cold pressed juices. The company has its retail outlets in over 250 locations in the Delhi – NCR region. Riju Gupta is the founder and CEO of Fresh Food Concepts.
Speaking on the recent developments in the company, he said, “We are on target to hit 75,000 bottles per month so the timing of this investment is very strategic. Delhi NCR has 50 million people, making it bigger than many countries in the world. This gives us a great opportunity to grow 20 times in this region alone”.
The funds secured from the current round of funding will be utilized for upgrading the production facility, enhancing the sales and distribution network, for branding and marketing and to explore new products over the next phase.
Commenting on the scope of this fast – emerging sector, seasoned investor Siddhartha Gupta said, “Compared to developed nations the clean label segment is largely virgin in India. In the cold-press juice category, each major city has a leading brand or two”.
Speaking about Juice Up, Siddhartha added, “Fresh Food Concepts has bootstrapped its way into becoming the market leader in their region. This is a classic case of easy to enter, execution heavy segment. Lots of artisanal brands and quality products can be found across metros, but only start-ups that can scale will remain relevant”.
Manufacturers of cold – pressed juices use a hydraulic press to extract juice from fruits and vegetables. Since these juices are processed using high pressure processing (HPP), they can be stored for about a month as compared to only four days for pasteurized juices. These fruit juices taste fresher and contain more nutrients than pasteurized juices.
I would generally prefer to have fresh fruit juices over soft drinks for refreshment purpose as they are very nutritious, supplying the body with much needed vitamins and fibers as opposed to only gas and sugar supplied by drinking soft drinks. Drinking the juices of certain fruits can even relieve people from depression. They keep a person physically and mentally energetic and fit. It is heartening to see an Indian Startup like Fresh Food Concepts get funded and dominate the Clean Label Segment in India.
Source: INDIAN CEO
