India’s biggest corporate tea retailer, Chai Point has now collaborated with Dunzo and Shadowfox to facilitate last-mile delivery for its consumers. A good number of Chai Point’s outlets operate from malls that are currently closed due to the lockdown imposed by Government. Presently, the company is running about 50 outlets on a standalone basis out of 170 doors spread over 13 cities.
Co-founder Amuleek Singh Bijral stated that the operations from preparing the food to its packaging will mostly be automated with no direct contact of hands. “As social distancing and less face to face interactions become a norm, our customers are also placing their faith in us to deliver food in a safe and contactless way.” He added, “With this mandate, we went back to the drawing board and have now integrated new safety measures for both store and delivery. For us, safety of our staff and customers is non-negotiable.”
Enterprises like Hindustan Unilever, P&G and ITC have also adopted this model of D2C to ensure the reach of their products to the consumers. This has removed the traditional trade and distributor networks in the chain where last-mile delivery is not possible due to Covid-19 restrictions. It was only through food delivery platforms like Swiggy and Zomato that restaurants reached out to their customers before the pandemic hit the world but now F&B industry has also started collaborating with platforms like Dunzo and Scootsy.
Chai Point has also started its own delivery service for households within 1 km radius of its stores and they stated that consumers preferred not to pay for the delivery and expect to know the details of preparation of food and packaging. The company clocked a revenue of Rs 138 crore in FY 18-19.
The firm will also set new guidelines and automate the processes through an android machine for BoxC, its dispensers in office spaces. The machine will be monitored through a command center remotely.