Tech-powered food and supply chain enterprise Waycool Foods has cut across Rs 1,000 crore in annual revenue run rate in June and is capitalizing close to $20 million for its expansion plans this year. It is planning to enter the market of Western India (Maharashtra) and the Middle East.
The company has plans to invest around $75-$100 million over the next four years to strengthen its progress as an automation-powered supply chain entity. Waycool will also be increasing its workforce from 1,250 to 3,000 in the next few years.
Karthik Jayaraman, co-founder, and CEO, Waycool Foods said revenues have grown 4X from the same time last year and it has increased its customer base by 4 times in the last one year and the company’s entry into Maharashtra will be as early as next month and will include setting up distribution centers in Navi Mumbai and Pune, and building Mumbai as a hub for imports of specified products, he added.
WayCool said the use of deep technology has helped the company to service its base of 1, 00,000 customers across the retail space, HoReCa (hotel, restaurant and catering) and other verticals with fresh produce, staples, and dairy products during the pandemic. “Currently, our productivity per team member is 1.5 times that of the industry average. Our target is to take this up to 5X,” Jayaraman said. To do this, the company is focusing on ramping up tech such as automated grading and sorting, as well as robotized material handling.
Further, the company now works with a base of 80,000 farmers across south India, not just through their commercial partnerships but also through their agricultural extension program, Outgrow, to increase their incomes by as much as 30%