Blinkit sees no compelling case for expanding private labels, says Dhindsa

In a letter to shareholders about Eternal’s September quarter earnings, chief executive Albinder Dhindsa said on Wednesday that the company does not see private labels offering a compelling case for improving margins or driving incremental demand.

“The private label case rests on building something genuinely differentiated — a product customers choose for its quality, story-telling or design. That means building a brand, not just putting our name on a product — and involves continuous product development, manufacturing development, quality control, inventory management across a full portfolio of SKUs, sampling and marketing to drive trial and repeat (business),” he said.

Dhindsa said brands are better equipped to build these capabilities than Blinkit, as they are outside the quick commerce platform’s core areas of expertise.


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“The exception is where deeper supply-chain control itself creates value. Fruits and vegetables are the clearest case — and Hyperpure already gives Blinkit that benefit through sourcing and quality control, without a separate consumer-facing brand,” he said, adding that the shelf space and visibility it would otherwise devote to marketing its own products can be used to help other brands grow on the platform.

“This also allows Blinkit to earn advertising revenue from brands,” he said. The company, however, has a private label play under the Whole Farm brand, which focusses on groceries and staple pantry categories like atta, rice, dal, dry fruits, masalas, and more.

Dhindsa’s comments come as rival Instamart is scaling its private label brand Noice. Blinkit has not scaled Whole Farm beyond groceries.

On October 5, Instamart announced that one in 10 orders on the platform now contain a Noice product. Under Noice, it offers items like clean-label snacks, desserts, groceries, beverages, dairy products, and more.

“At Instamart, we’re building a differentiated, high-quality assortment that consumers can trust and brands can grow with. Noice is key to this ambition, giving India's food entrepreneurs the platform, standards, and capital to scale,” Instamart CEO Nandita Sinha had said.