Big GridFoodIff 2023In Focus
10 winning retailer-brand partnership
Sanjay Kumar
By
Sanjay Kumar
March 25, 2023
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L-R: Rahul Sharma, Director, Doodh Misthan Bhandar; Bhanu Pratap Singh, National Head - Regional Brands, Reliance Retail
10 outstanding success stories of collaboration exemplifying how brands and retailers can create a winning playbook by leveraging on each other’s capabilities and resources
Why is it important for brands and retailers to work together? Well, it all boils down to the eternal quest for market growth and expansion — the holy grail of success in the retail business. With technology disrupting traditional ways of doing business and shifts in consumer habits spurring quick changes in the retail industry, it has become more important than ever for both brands and retailers to constantly innovate and look for the next opportunity.
Also, with competition heating up India’s food & grocery retail industry, even the Goliaths have to fight tooth and nail with the quick-footed Davids — young start-ups and upstarts that are more hungry and determined to carve their own place in the market. It is not uncommon to see young start-ups nipping at the heels of the traditional heavy-weight players. In such a hot-house market scenario where brands and retailers have to strain their sinews and ‘earn’ their growth, going it alone can lead to many missed opportunities or even missing the bus altogether.
But capturing market share and winning over the new set of consumers is easier said than done. Fortunately, brands and retailers know these home truths and the hard realities of the market. No surprise that they are increasingly striving to forge more enduring relationships that can help them to navigate the market maze and even beat the odds at hitting the home run.
By collaborating, brands and retailers can reach out to new customers and expand their reach in the market. Retailers can help brands distribute their products more effectively by leveraging their existing distribution networks. Brands can benefit from retailers’ expertise and resources, such as data analytics and omnichannel capabilities, to enhance their operations and offerings. Together, they can collaborate on marketing and promotional activities to drive sales and raise brand awareness besides helping each other to tap into new revenue streams, reduce costs, and improve overall profitability.
At the end of the day, both brands and retailers work for the shoppers. And when they come together, they can create a more seamless and integrated shopping experience for customers. By gaining a deeper understanding of consumer preferences and buying habits, they can tailor their offerings to meet customer needs better. The edge in retail business comes from acting on consumer insights and collaboration helps brands and retailers to jointly act to gain the first mover advantage and capture a bigger slice of the market. At the 15th edition of India Food Forum, many young and battle-hardened brands and retailers came out swinging to share their storied success stories of collaboration and the magic that spun from their partnerships. We bring you 10 outstanding success stories of collaboration between food and FMCG brands and retailers in building new consumption/ product categories or transforming a traditional category with innovation.
Doodh Misthan Bhandar and Reliance Retail unleash a storm in packaged sweets
When consumption of packaged sweets and single-serve sweet packs started rising precipitously during the pandemic, the retailer passed on this consumer insight to DMB, which moved fast to introduce some 50-odd varieties of sweets in small packs priced at Rs. 40 with consumers lapping up the new bite-sized offerings.
Jaipur-based Doodh Misthan Bhandar (DMB) started off with dairy farming in 1950 and successfully built a big and broad customer base for its pure desi milk products like curd, ghee, khoya, and chhena. In 1965, as part of its business extension and diversification, it forayed into sweets’ retailing, once again building a reputation for its hygienic and quality sweets. In 1999, DMB opened a fast-food restaurant in the city, thus dipping its toe into food service. After nearly six decades in the retail trade, DMB has evolved from a small dairy business in Jaipur into becoming an eminently successful and celebrated manufacturer and retailer of sweets in Jaipur.
Elements of the Collaboration
“About some 4-5 years ago, when our sweets business was thriving and we were looking to further scale the business, an opportunity came our way to strike a partnership with Reliance Retail for the packaged sweets category. Until then, sweets were largely consumed in loose form and often sold in bulk,” says Rahul Sharma, Director, Doodh Misthan Bhandar.
Once the partnership was in place, DMB products like gulab jamun, rasgolla and soan papdi started selling at all Reliance grocery stores in Jaipur. “When the covid pandemic struck, it proved to be a catalytic moment for both partners and we noticed that the consumption pattern for sweets was beginning to see a marked churn. A radical shift was seen with consumers moving away from loose to packaged sweets,” says Rahul.
Even as the consumer shift to packaged sweets played out strongly, DMB saw the demand for its packaged sweets shoot up precipitously. Another trend to start blowing was the brisk uptick in sales of single-serve sweet packs.
“Thanks to this collaboration, we passed on this emerging consumer insight to DMB, which quickly moved to capitalize on the growing trend. It came up with small packs priced at Rs. 40, which was introduced at all Reliance Retail grocery stores in Rajasthan. With strong public response to small-pack sweets, DMB was able to come up with some 50 odd varieties of sweets in small packs,” says Bhanu Pratap Singh, National Head – Regional Brands, Reliance Retail.
Outcome With the resounding success of DMB small-pack sweets, Reliance Retail has been able to sell these products as a good replacement for chocolates in the confectionery category. “Today, we are selling these small-pack sweets as small treats and have convincingly shown that mithais can be sold and retailed very profitably, which has really added fresh momentum to the packaged sweets category,” observes Bhanu Pratap.
The plan, going ahead is to further accelerate this novel way of sweets’ retailing by adding more products such as “gajar ka halwa” in single- serve cups and a whole lot of other products, thus bringing more options for families and their members to buy and consume such bite-sized treats as per their individual preferences.
Recently, DMB has introduced another couple of products to its small-pack single-serve offerings, which are registering feverish sales. The company has started selling the malpua, a delicacy relished by many Indians and a signature recipe on occasions like Holi and other festivities, and ghevar, which is a much-in-demand sweet across the country.
Thanks to such innovations, the packaged sweets category is expanding fast in Modern Trade and the channel is garnering new consumers who are all too happy to indulge their sweet tooth with bite-sized delights without having to buy them loose or in bulk or having to burn a hole in the pocket.