Caret Capital Portfolio Startup — Just Deliveries

Intra-city logistics for perishables

Prajakt Raut — Managing Partner — Caret Capital

JustDeliveries offers a professional, reliable intra-city cold logistics service for brands of perishable products e.g. central kitchen of restaurant chains, pastries, cheese, yoghourt, meats, etc.

JustDeliveries aggregates service providers like delivery vans and ensures compliance with SLAs like temperature control, hygiene, cleanliness, punctuality, etc. Moreover, JD optimises capacity utilisation by sharing the van with several brands. As a result, JD is able to offer cost-effective, efficient, and timely service to brands. The tech platform and app provide visibility to all stakeholders and synchronise processes amongst them.

By enabling brands of perishable products to service their outlets several times a day, and thus put fresher stock on store shelves and food service outlets.

Why we invested in JustDeliveries

Cold supply chain for perishables is inadequate and broken in India. While large brands like Starbucks and KFC’s of India have well-organised logistics services, smaller businesses do their own logistics in
vans and rickshaws and unorganised local vendors.

Many small and medium-sized food and beverage businesses require assistance with everyday food logistics. In the absence of such services, they are not able to replenish stock often, as they are unable to service sales outlets frequently enough in a day. (How often have you noticed that the pastry in a bakery is stale by evening because the manufacturer delivers it only once in the morning?)

With the growth of cloud kitchens, artisanal brands and organised retailers (like modern trade stores, dark stores and DC hubs), the need for intra-city logistics for perishables is even more accentuated.

Moreover, overtime as they service more retail points and micro-warehouses, JD has the opportunity to become the market access & distribution partner for brands. This has a significantly more lucrative business case than the logistics services model.

According to Redseer, food services is a $65 billion market opportunity in India, growing at 9% per annum and likely to reach $110 billion by 2025. Within the food services market of $65 billion, online delivery accounts for a market size of $4.2 billion, growing at 6–7%.

JustDeliveries Value proposition for F&B brands

“By providing reliable and efficient supply chain services, JD is organizing the back end supply chain for the emerging F&B brands. We aspire to be a significant player in the perishable logistics space by end of FY 25” — Mansi Mahansaria — Founder — JD

JustDeliveries updates — April 2023

• Have comfortably beaten their annual revenue targets this year too
• 80% of their customers have transferred >80% of their requirements to JD — this is a strong validation of their value proposition and the reliability that clients have experienced. (While the convenience of an organised, professionally managed experience is a driver for trials, eventually clients stay and give more business only if they feel confident about the partner. And JD has delivered admirably with a frugal team of highly committed and passionate individuals).
• In FY 22–23, successfully transitioned from an owned- vehicles model to a scalable asset light model. This brings massive scalability to the business.
• Started 2 new verticals: Cold storage and warehousing with inventory mgtin Nov 22 and Piloted intercity services through rail and road in Feb 23 enabling end to end services for clients.
• Won reputed F&B brands like Apsara, Go Zero, Mamie Yova, Tibbs Frankie, Third Wave Coffee, NOTO, Smoor, etc.
• In another big achievement, JD has successfully expanded into one new city — Bangalore. Before they expanded into Bangalore, the team in sharpened the processes and the operating model.
  The playbook is solidly ready for scale.

About Caret Capital

(Formerly known as Supply Chain Labs)

Caret Capital is a Venture Capital fund that backs category building startups making India’s value chain efficient.

Website — https://caretcapital.in/