Sadananda Maiya set to launch website to sell dosa and idly, will compete with MTR Foods

BENGALURU: Ready-to-eat food pioneer Sadananda Maiya is preparing to launch an e-commerce website to sell his dosa and idly mixes, pitting his three-year-old packaged food brand Maiyas directly against his former company MTR Foods online.

Emboldened by the successes of domestic online marketplaces such as Flipkart, Maiyas Beverages and Foods will launch a national e-commerce website on June 6 and a micro-portal for overseas consumers two weeks later, chairman Maiya told ET. Bigger rival MTR Foods, now owned by Norwegian food major Orkla, is preparing to launch its e-commerce website later this year.

Maiya, the son of Bengaluru’s iconic Mavalli Tiffin Rooms founder Yajna Narayana Maiya, headed MTR Foods until he sold it to Orkla for Rs 364 crore in 2007. Five years later, he launched Maiyas Beverages, selling an assortment of food mixes, sweets, masalas and snacks, familiar territory from his days with MTR Foods.

With his new website, the 66-year-old food industry veteran plans to directly offer about 270 food products online. “No shop has or can keep all our products. So we will address this issue through our consumer-friendly portals,” Maiya said. He is also launching a separate micro-portal offering products to merchants at discounted prices.

MTR Foods earned Rs 600 crore in revenue in 2014-15, versus Maiyas’ Rs 93 crore turnover. The latter hopes to end 2015-16 with revenue of about Rs 250 crore.

The size of India’s branded masala market is about Rs 6,200 crore and of snacks about Rs 4,000 crore, brand consultant Harish Bijoor said. E-commerce is the way forward for food entities as immediacy and freshness of food products can be delivered better through e-commerce than (through) retail shops, he said, adding, “There are 246 million internet users in India spending 36 minutes a day surfing on an average. That is a big opportunity.”

Maiyas Beverages, which is backed by private equity firm Ascent Capital, has tied up with Delhivery.com for handling domestic logistics and with cargo firm End2End for global deliveries. PayU will handle cross-country payments. Buyers in the United States, Europe and other geographies can pay in local currencies for all orders, irrespective of where these are to be delivered.

The company’s instant food products, meanwhile, will continue to be available on websites such as Bigbasket.com and Localbanya.com. It also plans to sell through Flipkart and Amazon.

Maiyas’ new e-commerce platform will come handy on occasions such as festivals when one would want to send sweets to several people, said Ascent Capital founder and chief executive Raja Kumar. “We have not set any targets for (Maiyas’) e-commerce business,” said Ajay Mittal, partner at Ascent Capital, which has invested about Rs 120 crore in the company. “We hope it will become a significant channel of distribution for Maiya products.”