IIT Bombay graduate Mayank Gupta, and Lalit Jhawar, a graduate of Kingston University, UK, have leased a commercial property from Bollywood actor Salman Khan for one crore rupees to establish a 25,000 sq ft gourmet supermarket named 'Food Square' on Mumbai’s bustling Linking Road in Santacruz.

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The duo are also involved in running the agri firm Landcraft Agro.

Inspiration struck when Future Retail, part of the debt-ridden Future Group, faced insolvency last year, causing the closure of FoodHall outlets, including their prominent location on Mumbai’s Linking Road. Mayank Gupta and Lalit Jhawar, who were former vendors for FoodHall, saw this as a golden opportunity to venture into the premium gourmet supermarket sector.

Landcraft Agro, known for supplying fresh produce to over 200 supermarkets across Western and Southern India for the past five years, served as a strong foundation for this new venture. Food Square successfully secured $3.6 million in funding from notable investors such as Masaba Gupta, Mukul Agrawal, Purple Style Labs, Sanket Parekh (from the Pidilite Family), Rahul Kalyan (SMIFS), and Harminder Sahni.

“We are farmer-entrepreneurs ourselves, running large-scale aquaponics & sustainable soil based farms in different parts of Maharashtra since over 5 years. Following the demise of a popular gourmet supermarket chain we saw an opportunity to enter this space. The current valuation of the Indian gourmet food market standing at $1.3 billion, a CAGR of 20 percent, makes it a promising arena,” Mayank told CNBC-TV18.

With Food Square, the duo will be taking on the likes of Reliance’s FreshPik and Nature’s Basket – once owned by Godrej, sold to by RP Sajiv Goenka Group in 2019.

“There is competition but if we can improve experience offered earlier, that’s how we’re looking to position ourselves. Take Harrods in UK for example, that’s how we’re looking to place ourselves,” Lalit added.

While the layout and offerings of Food Square are similar to its predecessor FoodHall, it will house live kitchens, a luxury cutlery collection from Versace, a wine cellar, a separate meat and seafood section, among others.

FoodHall was opened here in 2017 after Future Retail, through its subsidiary TNSI Retail Private Limited opened the store on the Salman Khan-owned property. It had renewed the lease in September 2022 for Rs 90 lakh. However, Khan sought to terminate the lease and take back possession of the property over non-payment of dues in March 2023.

Food Square saw this as an opportunity and leased this four-storey building from Khan earlier this year. The store soft-launched on the eve of Ganesh Chaturthi. While doors are open to the public, parts of the store are still under construction.

After this store in Mumbai, Food Square plans to eventually expand pan-India across Mumbai, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Chennai, Delhi, Jaipur and Pune, catering to the HNI and Ex-Pat Community.

(Edited by : Keshav Singh Chundawat)

First Published:Sept 25, 2023 7:02 PM IST