BigBasket is making efforts to ramp up its user base and farmer sourcing technology

BigBasket, the online food and grocery store, is all set to put in Rs. 500 crore to bolster its technology and back-end farmer supply chain. The firm is seeking to increase its customer base to 20 million by 2020 according to a top executive. Hari Menon, co-founder and CEO of BigBasket, said, “We are focusing significantly on strengthening our back-end farmer supply chain programme called Farmer Connect. Presently we are working with 1,800 farmers, and we will bring about 5,000 farmers into our fold in a year's time.”

BigBasket is essentially concentrating on providing better prices and on time payment to the farmers. As 85 per cent of the produce comes directly from the farmers, it is focusing on improving that. It works closely with hotels, restaurants and 2,000 stores, and wants to deepen its engagement with farmers for the supply. “All our hubs are close to farming locations. We have about 26 warehouses in 30 cities”, Menon further mentioned.

Talking about profits, Menon said that the company last year became operationally profitable in two cities, Bengaluru and Hyderabad. He is also aiming for Kolkata, Chennai and Ahmedabad in the next two months. This will enable the company to then allocate its resources towards media spending and other activities to achieve its growth targets, he explained. BigBasket likewise plans to put resources into innovation to additionally fortify client benefit zones and back-end efficiencies.