Supply reset

THE QUIET SUPPLY-CHAIN OVERHAUL RESHAPING HOW INDIA BUYS ITS MEAT

- S SHANTHI

THE IDEA BEHIND Zappfresh did not emerge from a strategy offsite ora market report.

It took shape in the aisles of India’s early online grocery platforms, where Deepanshu Manchanda noticed a stark imbalance: fruits and vegetables were steadily getting organised, but fresh meat remained fragmented, opaque and inconsistent.

Quality varied wildly. Hygiene standards were uncertain. Pricing lacked transparency. Most importantly, consumer trust was thin.

For Manchanda, that gap was not marginal — it was structural. Meat was a high-frequency, essential protein category, yet it was being treated as peripheral in the organised food ecosystem. Fixing it, he realised, would require more than a marketplace model stitching together local vendors. It would demand control over sourcing, processing and last-mile delivery.

Zappfresh was founded in 2015 on that premise: build an integrated, farm-to-fork meat supply chain capable of delivering consistency at scale. the vehicle through which that inclination took concrete form.

Entrepreneurship itself was not new territory for Manchanda. He had worked across consumer Internet, payments, and wellness, and had grown up around business. The instinct to build was longstanding.

Over time, however, his focus shifted away from fast, surface-level opportunities towards problems rooted in physical infrastructure and on-ground execution. Fresh food and protein stood out because of its scale, fragmentation, and long-term relevance. Zappfresh became