Overview

India’s imports for almonds accounted for $600 million in 2018. It isn’t much of a shocker, contributing to every typical Indian mother’s need to remind their family of eating them dry fruits every single day, is it?

In fact there is a total of 37 countries India imports these dry fruits from. The total import amount from which stood at $8.9 million the major reasons associated with the booming demand from the Indian consumers

The dry fruits business has been emerging in the form of online, retail and wholesale spaces because of the increasing health benefits of dry fruits, use in dairy and confectionery, use in the baking industry, use in hospitality industry and massive use as a form of packaged gifts on the occasion of festive, celebrations and auspice.

Moreover, because of large availability of dry fruits through wholesalers and massive Indian distribution channel the dry fruit business is likely to yield a reasonable profit margin with a minimal capital requirement and wide customer target base

Nuts about this business, aren’t you ? Now you’ll be

Market potential and uses

Dry fruits are the fruits that has been dried naturally or artificially using a machine. The major classification of dried fruits are in the form of

• Dehydrated fruits/dried fruits
• Nuts

Depending upon your capital capability, area availability and size of operations you can establish your dry fruit business as

• A wholesale dry fruit business
• Retail dry fruit business
• Online dry fruit business

The market potential for this business has been vast because of its increased benefits to the diet and health conscious consumers, rising use in the food and beverage industry and the consistent demand as a ritual of gifting them on celebratory and festive occasions.

Further, the market potential of dry fruits can be defined and elaborated on the basis of types of dry fruits and their specific uses

On the basis of dehydrated fruits

• Cranberries
• Figs
• Blueberry
• Açai
• Peaches
• Prunes

On the basis of dry fruits and nuts with their uses

• Almonds :  used in snacks, sweets, milkshakes, desserts, ingredient in food, as a flavoured butter and spread, in milk, cosmetic uses
• Cashews: used in authentic dishes, as a form of cheese, in dry snacks, as a flavoured butter, in sweets
• Dates: used as a popular consumption to end fasting, as gift giving, health benefits
• Raisins: used as a topping over desserts, cereals, chocolates, an ingredient in food
• Walnuts: Used in breakfast, used for health benefits, use in making traditional Indian sweets, used as a topping on brownies and cupcakes

Licenses required

The licenses required to run a dry fruit making business is

• GST registration
• MSME registration
• Trade license
• FSSAI registration and certificate
• IEC registration

Other details

• The Nhava Sheva sea is the most popular port for dry fruit import in India

  Investment required

The investment required to set up a dry fruit business is as follows

Content	Amount
Small scale (outlet based)	₹ 2.5 lakhs – ₹ 3 lakhs
Large scale (wholesale based)	₹ 15 lakhs – ₹ 30 lakhs

Profits made

The profits that one could earn from this dry fruit business is ₹50000 – ₹1 lakh per month

• Target consumers

The target consumers for your dry fruit business are as follows:

• Sweet shops : The traditional Indian sweet shops require almonds, raisins, cashews for making sweet rice cakes, sweets, barfis, cathlis etc
• Desserts shops: The dessert shops require dry fruits like walnuts, hazelnuts, almonds, cashews to be used as toppings over the desserts or even make dry fruits flavoured cupcakes, brownies etc
• Dairy and confectionery: These make use of dry nuts especially the almonds to make sweetened, unsweetened and flavoured almond milk for the diet and health conscious consumers
• Baking shops: These make use of dry fruits to be added as an ingredient of as a topping in biscuits, croissants, cakes etc
• Supermarket and retail shops: These stock up on dry fruits to cater to to the health and diet needs of consumers as week as to meet the celebratory, festive gifting demands of the customers on the occasions of weddings, Ramzan, Diwali, holi, Christmas etc
• Catering services : these also require dry fruits as a part of their business to offer roasted dry fruits like cashews, almonds etc as starters at weddings and events etc
• Cosmetic industries: The cosmetic industry also require almonds specifically to make natural and organic face creams, mists, face washes etc to adhere to the beauty needs of their consumers
• Online grocery platforms: The online grocery platforms like big basket, grofers or online gift giving services also require dry fruits to cater to the online customers needs of those for gift giving and fitness needs

Area required

The area required to set this dry fruit business could be

• Small scale : 100-200 sq ft
• Large scale : 1000-1500 sq ft

Raw materials required

The raw materials required to set this business are

• Imported dried fruits
• Nuts
• Packaging materials
• Labels

Machinery required

The machinery required to set up a dry fruit business is

• Packaging machine
• Quality testing machine

  Manpower required

The manpower required to set up a retail or outlets based dry fruit busines would be

• 2 unskilled workers
• 1 skilled worker

The manpower required for a wholesale based dry fruit business is

• 5 unskilled workers
• 3 skilled workers

Moreover, ample training in terms of the following must also be provided with

• Equipment handling
• Sales training
• Customer relationship training

Business model and growth

The business model of a a dry fruit business can be defined using these four variants

1. Value proposition: The vale which this business is likely to provide to you is

• Numerous import options
• Largest customer demand
• Massive distribution channel
• Reasonable profit margin

Target consumers: The target consumers of this business are

• Sweet shops
• Milkshake spaces
• Hotels and restaurants
• Supermarket and retail shops
• Baking industry
• Catering services
• Online grocery stores
• Competitor review: The competitors to your dry fruit business are as follows:

• Nutraj
• Ziofit
• Tulsi
• Sainik’s
• Carnivals
• Vedaka
• Royal

Marketing strategy: The marketing strategy that can be implemented by your dry fruit business is

• Advertising: Through tv commercials, brand endorsements
• Sales promotion: Through sample promotion at bakery and sweet shops, cash and bulk discounts
• Google listing through registration in local directories, appearance in blogs, articles etc

Growth

The dry fruit business has the potential and has witnessed the following growth prospects

• The Indian import for dry fruits has increased by 44.8% from 2018-2020 because of the increased routine  consumption of dry fruits by the Indian consumers
• Secondly, because of the dietary benefits to fitness conscious consumers, health benefits to the heart, diabetic patients and skin benefits to the beauty conscious consumers

Profit margin

The profit margin which this business is likely to yield to you is 5-10%

Suggestions

Have a bowl of those dry fruits and get set to get started with this dry fruit business and here’s why

• Firstly, because of the growing applications of dry fruits in baking, confectionary and sweet industry the demand for these has been increasing at an increasing rate
• Secondly, the import options from more than 30 countries is likely to give you the benefit of import the specialised dry fruits from specialised regions and countries catering to that niches of customers
• Lastly, the profit margin, distribution channel and expansion perks of this business are more than just reasons to get started with this business