Deal highlights

• Grocery delivery for ethnic communities in the US 
• Currently serving the South Asian community (Indian, Pakistani, Bangladeshi), and planning to serve the Chinese, Korean, Filipino, Latino, Greek, Middle Eastern and other communities soon
• Market of an estimated 81 million diverse customers, with a market size between $65 and $100 billion annually
• 25,000 orders delivered to 5,000 unique customers
• $1.1 million annual revenue run rate
• 70.2% repeat customer rate
• Month-over-month cash flow positive
• Key team members are veterans in ethnic grocery delivery management, technology and data analytics

25% of the U.S. population identifies with an ethnic community, but ethnic grocery stores are few and far between

5.6% of the population is Asian American; 3.2% Middle Eastern; 17% various Hispanic and Latino ethnicities. That’s about 81 million people of non-European descent--what we are calling ethnic--representing a market size of $65  - $100 billion annually in the US.

Ethnic food is important to these ethnic communities. Even though people of various backgrounds are taking food out or eating in restaurants from time-to-time, they still enjoy the comfort  of cooking the foods they grew up eating at home. But ethnic grocery stores are few and far between, making ethnic food inaccessible and hard to procure for many customers. The market is being ignored by the big players in both the grocery store and grocery delivery spaces.

For the ethnic community, ethnic food is more than just food. It is not just comfort food, or a connection to home, but also part of an identity. 

Fretch delivers ethnic groceries right to your doorstep

With Fretch, you can have access to the foods that make you who you are.

• Delivered locally in markets with high concentrations of ethnic communities
• Offers convenience with delivery at home and price competitiveness compared to physical stores
• Provides large selection of brands including frozen goods, produce, and dairy
• Website designed with Ease of Use and Quick Ordering in mind
• Offers low delivery fees to reduce the hurdle
• Serves as a one-stop shop for all the needs of an ethnic family, as opposed to only providing popular ethnic products

Fretch is proud to offer an easy and convenient online experience to customers placing orders.

With a friendly, empathetic, and responsive customer service team that understands the cultural nuances and is prompt in responding to orders and delivery issues.

Organic growth through word-of-mouth 

Our customers are spreading the word about Fretch. Because we are bootstrapped, all our growth has come organically through word of mouth and user recommendations. We have delivered over 25,000 orders to 5,000 unique customers and are currently operating at a $1.1 million annual revenue run rate. Although grocery is considered a ‘volume business’ as economies of scale come into play, we have had a laser focus on profitability since day one, and as a result we are currently month-over-month cash flow positive.

We’ve experienced positive quarter-over-quarter growth since 2015 and are on track for substantial growth in 2019.  

Our customers absolutely love us, and we love them back

We treat them how we’d treat our family, our moms, and our grandmas--with love and respect. They are our Fretch Family.

We constantly seek feedback, and listen closely to our customers no matter what they have to say. We pride ourselves in a perfect 5 star rating on Facebook and Google. Some of our reviews:

We have over 5,000 unique customers. 1,378 of them have placed at least 5 orders with us, and 183 of them have placed at least 25 orders! When a customer places an order with Fretch for the first time, there is an over 70% chance s/he will place another order with us, without any present marketing effort!

Business model 

We are in the business of delivering ethnic groceries to ethnic communities in major metropolitan areas like New York, and we are committed to making Fretch the go-to grocery delivery service for such communities through a unique combination of speed, convenience, variety, savings, transparency and an overall superior shopping experience.

Our current cost of acquisition of a customer is $10.50 and the average order size in $80. The current lifetime value of our customers is $225 (on gross profit over a one year time period).

Pricing:

• Beat store prices on the basics. We maintain a lower markup on the staples (rice, flour, etc.) 
• Maintain a reasonable markup on everything else. Our markups are slightly higher, but still very reasonable, on other items like snacks and frozen entrees. 

Strategic growth:

• We will identify and target large pockets of ethnic communities in major US metropolitan cities and scale accordingly
• We will minimize costs by leveraging shared warehousing and delivery infrastructure as multiple ethnicities are added to same locations.
• We will perfect the business and distribution in one location, focusing on one ethnicity. And then we will replicate the model along with the systems and processes to other ethnicities and locations.

Grocery and delivery markets in the U.S. are huge

Total retail and food services sales in the U.S. in 2017 were around $5.5 trillion, and grocery store sales specifically totaled $641 billion.

And if 25% of the U.S. population identifies as part of an ethnic community--that is about 81 million people. Here’s the breakdown:

• 5.6% Asian Americans
• 3.2% Middle Eastern
• 17% various Hispanic and Latino ethnicities

Assuming 50% interest and utilization, the ethnic grocery market size can be estimated to be about 10-15% of the U.S. grocery store sales ($641 B) or about $65 billion-$100 billion annually in the US.

Large scale grocery delivery services don't offer much in ethnic foods 

Our primary competitors are Amazon Fresh, Freshdirect, Peapod, and other ethnic retail outlets. But our sheer variety of offerings within a particular ethnic niche makes us the comprehensive go-to service for the grocery requirements of that ethnic group. Most ethnic community-specific retail outlets, on the other hand, do not have a nimble, local delivery system in place and are severely limited in reach. We’re really out on our own when it comes to offering online orders and delivery in the ethnic grocery space.

Furthermore, our consistent focus on maintaining high product quality, packaging, and a world-class customer experience, coupled with investments in setting up business and technology processes to enable a seamless loop of orders, fulfillment and feedback puts us in a very serious position to capture a big piece of this lucrative pie.

Bootstrapped & profitable 

Fretch started with the Founder’s personal funds and savings of about $200K. Loans were taken from friends and family along the way that have now been completely paid off.

We 100% bootstrapped, and are now profitable with a healthy growth trend. That said, we want to expand faster, and spend more on growth, technology and marketing, for which we’re looking for funding that will further fuel our next growth spurt  (see roadmap below).

We are in talks with a few high profile angel investors, but primarily, it’s all right here at Republic.

Our roadmap

Within the last year, our focus has been to perfect our business model and the internal processes, and most importantly, to establish profitability within the model. Having achieved sustained profitability and established benchmarks for various internal processes from inventory management to staff management to product quality management, we are now at a point where we are primed to grow exponentially. The business model, the processes, and the financial numbers can support this growth.

Our focus now is to invest in user acquisition, customer retention, and E-Commerce technology to materialize the growth.

We envision the next phase of the company to replicate the business model that we have built so far to expand into other ethnicities and geographies within the US.

Key team-members

Why we’re the right ones for the job. 

The Fretch team has just the right experience for what we’re doing:

• A grocery delivery company founded by veterans in the field with 10 years of experience in grocery and delivery
• 11 years of relevant experience in customer service
• 12 years of relevant experience in data analytics

And most of all, we not only share a love of food, but we also have a deep understanding of the problem experienced personally, and by friends and family. 

Join us on this exciting journey

Let’s celebrate the diversity of our great country with one of its most important cultural ingredients - food! Get in on the ground floor while you still can!