In the fruits and vegetable (F&V) market, Pluckk, a digital lifestyle-focused fresh food brand, revealed on Tuesday that it had acquired KOOK, an Indian food-tech firm that provides a variety of DIY meal kits, for a sum of USD 1.3 million.
According to the company’s announcement, the acquisition was funded by a combination of cash and stock.
By including pre-portioned ingredients and simple-to-follow recipes, KOOK’s DIY ready-to-cook meal kits make cooking more accessible to anyone. KOOK has a significant following in Mumbai and Delhi and is known for accommodating a variety of dietary requirements.
Pluckk is “well-positioned to deliver the best quality fresh food to end-consumers in this thriving USD 15 billion market,” according to the statement. “KOOK’s strong target audience and expertise in meal kits”
The acquisition will allow Pluckk to provide customers across India with an unrivalled farm-to-fork experience, according to Nelson D’Souza, CFO of Pluckk. KOOK has proven expertise in developing a world-class product in the meal kit space.
Ready-to-cook meal kits have been a popular culinary trend in the post-Covid era, with consumers wanting to be in charge of the food they eat while having more eating alternatives. We aim to capitalize on this trend by incorporating this distinction into our client experience.
He also noted that “from a unit economics point-of-view, this is a welcome addition to our portfolio and will help us hasten our journey towards developing a profitable business.” According to the announcement, Pluckk’s acquisition of KOOK is a calculated move to capitalize on the market for meal kits’ immense development potential and offers considerable chances for Pluckk.
According to projections, the worldwide market would increase by 20% CAGR from USD 15.21 billion in 2021 to USD 31.5 billion in 2025.
The similarities between what we are doing at KOOK and Pluckk’s lifestyle-first strategy for the produce market appear to be pretty alluring.
Nikhil Thatai, the co-founder of KOOK, stated: “We estimate the market size of meal kits to be around USD 1 billion in India by 2025, and we look forward to leveraging our expertise in meal kit delivery to offer healthy and delicious meal options to cater to this booming market in our country.”
In 2020, ISB graduates Nikhil and Arpitta started the DIY meal kit company KOOK. With locations in Delhi and Mumbai, KOOK was founded with the goal of making cooking at home hassle-free and simple.
Through their ozone wash and traceability programme, Pluckk provides a farm-to-fork product line for health-conscious consumers that features safe and chemical-free produce.
The direct-to-consumer (D2C) platform owned by Pluckk, as well as partner platforms including Blinkit, Swiggy, Zepto, Dunzo, and Amazon all, carry their items.
With present operations in Bangalore and Mumbai, Pluckk delivers a wide selection of specialty choices of gourmet fruits and veggies directly to end-consumers, cutting out middlemen. It was co-founded by Pratik Gupta and received seed funding from Exponential Ventures (EV).
The platform has already signed up more than 500 farmers from Mumbai and Bengaluru and hopes to sign up 1,000 more in the upcoming six months.
