Home-grown sports and nutrition brand, Fast&Up is expecting a three-fold growth in business during the current fiscal backed by a steady demand for health and nutrition products among consumers in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic.
The company is looking to venture into newer segments including the kids category, launch more products in existing segments and expand its retail footprint to tap the growing market.
According to Vijayraghvan Venugopal, CEO, Fast&Up, the company has witnessed a three times growth in revenue since March and expects the momentum to continue due to growing awareness among consumers about the need for health and nutrition products.
“Covid in a way has brought focus into health and nutrition like never before. We witnessed 3X growth in revenue over the last four-to-five months and this was pretty much led by our Active range of products which includes Vitamin-C, multivitamin, and minerals. Sport, as a segment, has taken a beating in the last couple of months. But now with the IPL starting and the government now allowing sports events to take place on a limited scale under the unlock phase, that segment is beginning to see some momentum,” Venugopal told
Product offerings
Acknowledging a gap in the plant based nutrition segment, the company recently launched a new collection of homegrown nutrition products: Fast&Up Curcumin and Fast&Up Terra Organic Spirulina Plus and their plant based vegan friendly Terra series.
. Pre Covid it had 12 products in its basket and it has launched five more products in the last three months. It further plans to launch close to 10 products during the current fiscal.
“One of the categories where we have not been present in was the natural range of products which are more plant powered. So we launched products in that segment and we are looking to grow it,” he said.
The company is also planning to launch a range of products targeted at kids. The idea would be to make products which are “fun oriented” so as to ensure that mothers need not push it to kids rather they look forward to having it.
Fast & Up is also witnessing a steady demand from corporate looking for nutrition and health products as gifting options (as an alternative to sweets) for their employees and customers during festive season.
Retail footprint
Fast & Up, which is currently present in 8-10 key cities, is looking to expand its footprint across the country and is looking to move into Tier II towns. The company, which started ventured into retail segment in June last year, is currently present across 5,000 outlets.
It plans to touch 15,000 outlets by December and move into the Tier II towns of Pune, Indore, Mysore etc.
“Online is growing pretty fast.... India has been underleveraged in this segment and Covid has given a major boost to that and we see that continuing,” he said.
The company is planning to roll out smaller pack sizes and adding more variants to suit the needs of customers.
Fast & Up, which recently became the official nutrition partner for the IPL team - Chennai Super Kings, is looking to leverage the association to take the brand to the masses, he added.