Description
Organic retailing is a tough business to crack. While the success and failure rates of all food stores depend on numerous factors including location, competition, management, and market demand, the odds of business mortality are loaded heavily against organic retailers.
The business is characterized by a very slender base of organic-buying consumers, high cost of organic products, and the attendant challenges in managing the organic supply chain. That explains why many retailers who start down the organic road lose their way before reaching the finishing line. While making ends meet is a huge existential challenge for most organic stores, our story on pages 16-26 serves as a Rx on how to run an organic retail enterprise successfully and profitably. Dhanyam Organic Superstores, which runs 9 organic outlets in Chennai, has created its own retailing canon in running the business profitably and scaling it up.
Like organic, dairy too is a complex business to run and manage. While the perishable nature of milk and issues around its quality and integrity create its own set of challenges, there are other confounding aspects of the dairy business. Read our story on pages 48-58 to discover how large parts of India’s dairy industry continue being saddled with legacy burdens and has a myopic view toward new-age digital solutions.
Dairy companies lose roughly about 3% of their milk production within the plant itself, besides losing some more in the form of pilferage and wastage during transportation. But by using digital tools, companies can plug all such loopholes and lacunae, and improve their overall operational efficiency and profitability.
As always, there is a slate of other interesting stories in this issue to keep you up to speed with the business of grocery retailing.
