Meet the New Milkman This World Milk Day meet the man behind this consumer obsessed dairy tech startup

Chakradhar Gade, Co-founder, Country Delight

The desire to build a large brand that impacts millions of customers and stands for customer-first thinking led to the launch of Country Delight. Country Delight works on the promise of natural goodness and believes that all its customers should consume food essentials in a relatively close way to the way nature provides. Country Delight milk is traced all the way directly to the farmers, using the latest and real-time IoT tech to track quality right at the source. "We ensure that milk is sourced fresh as cow milk and buffalo milk and delivered to the doorstep of the customer in 24-36 hours from milking. We even give a fresh milk kit to every family that allows them to test the purity of milk right at their doorstep, shares Chakradhar Gade, Co-founder, Country Delight.

Being a full-stack D2C brand all its products are served only through the Country Delight app and delivered directly to home by Country Delight. The company has a full-stack and operates under a daily subscription model serving its customers fresh cow and buffalo milk, Dahi, Ghee, Paneer, and Fresh Bread and Eggs. When asked about running the operations during Covid, Gade says, "Being a full-stack business, we have full control over our supply chain. This has enabled us to deliver food essentials reliably throughout the Covid crisis. Even on the worst day of the lockdown, we have been delivering with 96 percent fulfillment rates." The company planned ahead of time for a lockdown scenario, which enabled its services to continue without a single day of disruption. Country Delight focused on three fundamental aspects during this period - regular communication with relevant policy stakeholders, ensuring health and safety of delivery partners and customers, and issuing constant updates to customers about deliveries.

The initial days were most challenging to manage on-ground timely deliveries for Country Delight as the government policies were evolving constantly. However, communicating properly with the relevant stakeholders in order to get the necessary permissions in time made daily early morning deliveries possible. ID cards, curfew passes, and other necessary documents were arranged and issued to all delivery partners, transport vehicles and suppliers to ensure timely movement of goods. To make the process smoother, delivery timings were altered to comply with government mandates on traffic movement. Country Delight initiated contactless delivery to safeguard its delivery partners as well as customers.

Country Delight was established by Engineers and IIM graduates Chakradhar Gade and Nitin Kaushal. After bootstrapping the business for five years, the founders looked at raising external investment in 2017. To support the growth they have had partners such as Elevation Capital (Saif Partners), Matrix Partners, IIFL, and Orios Venture Partners. In the last three years, they have raised about $50 Mn and have grown 55 times in revenue.

The brand aims to bring the entire countryside and countryside products directly to every customer's doorstep every morning under the promise of Naturally Achha, Naturally Sacha. The company plans to cover the entire basket of food essential under the brand name of Country Delight delivering pure, fresh, and minimally processed products directly to the doorstep of the customer. "Some of the categories we are looking to capture in the next one year include fresh fruits and vegetables and cold-pressed oils," shares Gade.

Factsheet

• Team of ~900 people working with over 1200 farmers and about 3500-morning entrepreneurs
• $55 Million revenue

(This article was first published in the May 2021 issue of Entrepreneur Magazine. To subscribe, click here)