SUMMARY
The snacks brand will grow its product portfolio and expand distribution networks to leverage the massive market opportunity in India
The Origin Story
Anish Basu Roy worked for consumer brands such as Coca-Cola and Nokia before setting up Shotang in 2013, a venture-funded retail distribution platform. Five years later, he started looking for another opportunity (his first venture had pivoted to a logistics platform) and began researching the food sector to learn more about healthy snacking. To his surprise, India had limited options except for a few brands selling drab products at premium prices. Keen to turn ‘drab’ to fab, fun and better snacking, he partnered with Sagar Bhalotia to launch TagZ Foods.
The Differentiator
TagZ (derived from ‘hashtag’ to attract tech-savvy young people) is a popped chip maker but currently offers a wholesome range of tasty yet healthy dips, dark chocolate centre-filled hemp cookies, corn puffs, corn bhujia and date snacks. Instead of the oil-fried aloo bhujia, its flagship popped chips are never fried or baked but hydrated and puffed under heat and pressure, thus cutting down on oil/fat. All products are made in-house at its nine units across Karnataka, Maharashtra, Rajasthan and Punjab.
The Growth
The GenZ snacks brand of Shark Tank fame started selling online, but 70% of its sales now happen offline due to heavy GT (general trade) play. The brand is available on all major quick-commerce platforms and B2B and B2C marketplaces such as Swiggy Instamart, Blinkit, Zepto, Amazon, Flipkart, Udaan, Dealshare and Jumbotail. TagZ saw 2x revenue growth in FY23 and recently entered organised retail with Dmart. It also onboarded cricketer Shikhar Dhavan as its brand ambassador and investor in 2023.
What’s Next
TagZ Foods wants to emerge as a snacking enterprise and grow its product offerings by adding new categories like namkeens, sweets and mukhwas (mouth fresheners). It will also focus on expanding distribution networks and brand building in a couple of years for greater availability and better visibility.
