For serving 1.2 Lakh glasses of chai everyday and growing 12% month on month. The company has also launched chai-on-call and chai@work, both witnessing good early traction.
DIVYA M. CHANDRAMOULI
When Amuleek Singh Bijral founded Chai Point (Mountain Trail Foods Pvt. Ltd.) in 2010, he wanted to capitalise on India’s love for chai. With Series-A funding to the tune of Rs. 13 crore from Saama Capital in May 2014, it has established outlets across four cities in India including Bengaluru and New Delhi-NCR. In addition, the company runs two other distribution verticals; ‘Chai @ Work’ that addresses the demand from corporates and ‘Chai on Call’ that is its home-delivery system. The Chai on Call vertical allows consumers to place orders through a website, a mobile app and a call centre and Chai @work offers loyal enterprise consumers subscription services.
As a business, Chai Point is highly invested in its technology from employing industrial water softeners to soften hard water to using heat retaining use-and-throw flasks for its deliveries. The company is also keen to give back to the environment and engages in distributing used tea leaves (to be used as manure) to farmers in and around Bengaluru, for free. It also uses only battery-operated bikes as part of its delivery service.
At present, the company serves about 1.2 lakh glasses of chai a day and this number is growing by 10 per cent to 12 per cent, month-on-month while Chai on Call has been growing at a rate of 25 per cent, month-on-month. Over the next three years, the company aims to be present in 10 cities across India and as part of its ten-year plan, Chai Point wants to reach 20 Indian cities while going global by entering markets such as the Middle-East, Pakistan, Indonesia, Malaysia and the U.S.
Innovating on product: In addition to traditional ways of serving chai and packaging high-quality tea bags, the company has a packaged product range that includes a bottled iced-chai range and ‘made for chai’ snacks
Innovating on distribution: Chai Point has tie-ups with various food delivery websites and restaurant aggregators to deliver chai to their customers. It also aims to expand its network of channel partners to include hotel/guest house aggregators (OYO, Stayzilla); dynamic office work spaces (Breathing Rooms); car rental services (ZoomCar, Ola Cabs) and many more evolving categories
Innovating on payment: The Chai Point app allows consumers to place orders and also doubles up as a payment device at the company’s outlets through the use of a bar code scan. The company has also issued over 25,000 MSR cards till date and this system allows it to track usage efficiently
