Helping brands expand and grow with Rebel Launcher

At Rebel Foods, we understood the importance of automation and internet restaurants back in 2014 when we opened our first cloud kitchen with Faasos. Due to our early understanding of business, we got a chance to build a resilient operating system after multiple learnings and success. The first non-homegrown brand to enter the Rebel ecosystem was Slay Coffee in Feb, 2019. It enabled us to further understand what it takes to work with non-Rebel brands within our kitchens & overall ecosystem. With the onset of lockdown in March 2020, we decided the time was right to open up our operating system (OS) to the F&B community at large. An outcome of the sudden lockdown was a realization that we have un-utilized space in our kitchens. This was the veritable a-ha moment.

With the Slay addition going from strength to strength, we were quietly confident and Rebel Foods under the auspices of Rebel Launcher was launched. It would be offering Rebel’s collective learnings from 2014 as a first in industry SaaS offering to the F&B community. With any new idea, you only understand its values once you go to market and actually put out the offering. A blog post by our founder Jaydeep Barman, a few tactical messages in relevant industry WhatsApp groups and we had garnered enough interest to bring onboard our first brand partners. With Mad Over Donuts (MOD) & Naturals Ice Cream of Juhu coming on board in August & September; respectively, we knew we were onto something. Bolstered by their growth within our kitchen network, we knew we had achieved product-market-fit (PMF).

All of this hasn’t changed our single-minded focus on serving our customers first and that transcended to Launcher, in that we look to help brands build their business with our model. While the cloud-kitchen concept has given a new lease of life to the food business, our focus will remain to support the brands through our expertise rather than competing with any brands.

The Rebel Operating System comprises three things:

• A full-stack technology from inventory and kitchen management all the way to demand management and fulfillment
• Supply chain capabilities for sourcing, warehousing, and moving input materials safely in any shape and form
• Culinary expertise and capabilities to break down menus into small SOP-driven steps that don’t require any additional skill

These elements are available across all 350+ kitchens across 55+ cities. Brands as a part of Rebel Launcher can integrate instantly with all distribution channels and cost efficiency with shared resources. We continue to partner with brands who reflect our promise of placing customers first and extend our expertise and scale them towards becoming a national brand on delivery. We first start with brands in select regions and slowly scale the brands capturing customer demand and delight. 

Our journey:

Rebel Launcher has grown at a steady clip with learnings, tweaks to the model and improvements at every step of the way. Our initial days saw us catering to SME entrepreneurs across the country and allowing all sizes of brands, companies and ideas to enter the kitchen network. It was fast learning for both brands & the Rebel Launcher team. Over time as things started opening up and our kitchen network was fully reopened, we began to welcome great restaurant brands to utilize our cloud kitchen to scale pan-India and even abroad.

We’ve now crunched down the time it takes to get onboard Rebel Launcher to as little as 15 days, starting from initial discussions to the date of the first sale from Rebel kitchens. The hassles of finding the right location, proper infrastructure to actually get the kitchens running and ensuring the legal compliance is in place, we’ve got it all covered. Not forgetting, the pandemic has heavily impacted dine-in sales and given further impetus to food delivery in the F&B business. This is where the Rebel Operating System makes even more sense.

Our current brands:

Today, we work with +25 brand partners across 350+ internet restaurants from 250+ locations across India. Some of India’s most well respected F&B brands have started working with us and grown their footprint within the network; Naturals Ice Cream, Mad Over Donuts, Anand Sweets (Bangalore), Baskin Robbins, The Brooklyn Creamery, Sodabottleopenerwalla from the Olive Restaurant Group, Belgian Waffle Company and many more.

The growth story of a few marquee brands from Rebel Kitchens has been significant. Natural Ice Creams started with 23 outlets in Sep 2020 and are currently present in +60 outlets in +10 cities. Mad Over Donuts now operates in 50+ locations across India in +5 cities. Anand Sweets, a powerhouse in Bangalore, has moved to Mumbai with us. We have scaled up Wendy’s in 30+ locations in the last four months and will reach 100 locations by the end of this year.

Author: Ankur Sharma, co-founder and Chief Business Officer, Rebel Foods.

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