Exotic delicacies, just a click away

Sweet cravings

How many times have you craved for delicacies like Agra ka petha, Amritsar ki pinni and Ahmadabad ka khakra? Unless it is a festival, a wedding or any other special occasion, we are bound to replace these with local substitutes that taste nothing like their original counterparts.

This made Sneha Chopraa start an online venture called exoticflavoursofindia.com (EFI) that delivers such regional delicacies to all parts of the country.

The idea, Chopraa says, originated while waiting at the airport when she saw people carrying popular sweets of that city while travelling. It occurred to her that there is a “huge latent need waiting to be fulfilled”.

“Last winter, I was so delighted when Manu (EFI co-founder) visited Amritsar and brought a box of pinnis from there. A few months later, when I visited Allahabad around Holi, I brought a box of gujiyas for him. This set us thinking about a business plan to make it easy for people to buy food products they crave for, from different parts of India,” Chopraa tells Metrolife.

As many as 40 brands like Chaina Ram, Nathus, Panchhi Petha from Agra and Induben Khakrawala from Ahmadabad, from 12 Indian states are on board. The portal allows people to order by regions as well. They offer secure online payments or cash on delivery options.

On being asked as to how the products are sourced, Chopraa explains, “We deal only in those products which have minimum 30 days shelf life. We buy products from brand owners and keep seven days inventory at our warehouse.”

She says that they dispatch the order within 24 hours of receipt and deliver it within two days to Mumbai, Delhi, Gurgaon, Pune, Ahmedabad, Hyderabad, Chennai and Bangalore and around six days to remote areas like Jammu and Kashmir and Northeast.

But how is the food quality ensured until delivery time? “Through smart inventory management, we ensure food products are not in our warehouse for more than seven days and we discard all products 15 days before expiry date. We try using the most reputed and tested logistics providers to ensure timely delivery to consumer,” says Chopraa.

So where food lovers travel miles to source their favorite regional delicacies, EFI gives them an opportunity to buy them online with just a click.

While agreeing that the awareness level of this category is “low”, Chopraa is now determined to get 200 brands on board with 1,000 regional delicacies by end of this year.