“We believe that technology plays a key role at every stage of the fresh produce supply chain”: Harsh Goyal from Amazon India

Mumbai: Amazon Fresh recently released the second edition of its ‘Nahi toh Mehenga Padega’ campaign, which stars actor Manoj Bajpayee as the beloved character ‘Ghanshyam’. Developed by MediaMonks and directed by Harshvardhan Kulkarni, this quirky campaign takes a humorous look at the common struggles of online grocery shopping while highlighting Amazon Fresh’s commitment to value, quality and convenience.

Delving deeper, Indiantelevision.com caught up with Amazon India Grocery Director Harsh Goyal to get the scoop on the second edition of Amazon Fresh’s ‘Nahi toh Mehenga Padega’ campaign, the differentiating aspect of Amazon Fresh in the Indian market and more…

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL1w6BX6sDOI2ZvOfcJLvSEEWipgqvgE1N

Edited excerpts:

About the inspiration behind the concept of the second edition of the “Nahi toh Mehenga Padega” campaign.

A relatable character, ‘Ghanshyaam’ played by Manoj Bajpayee in our Amazon Fresh ad campaigns – “Nahi toh Mehenga Padega”, embodies the problem that the common man has when buying groceries online. Our observations and research show that consumers are primarily looking for value and quality of food products. Our recent advertising campaign highlights both of these aspects in a comical way, in which a customer rushes to buy groceries and misses out on savings and good quality. This creative approach not only captivates audiences, but also deepens the brand’s relationship with them. Amazon Fresh offers consumers amazing savings with bank offers and cashback, no delivery fees and excellent quality fruit and vegetables.

About Amazon Fresh differentiating itself in the Indian market in the face of increasing competition and challenges that Amazon Fresh poses to its fast commerce competitors

Grocery is a huge market and we believe that different formats will co-exist to meet different consumer needs. For example, Amazon Fresh’s value proposition is not only speed, but also a wide range of everyday products, incredible savings for consumers, and the highest quality fruits and vegetables delivered to customers in two-hour time slots. Regardless, Amazon continues to improve the speed at which we deliver orders to customers. Amazon delivers millions of products to customers on the same day, which is by far the largest same-day delivery inventory in India.

About the role of technology in ensuring the freshness and quality of food products delivered to consumers

We believe technology plays a key role at every stage of the fresh produce supply chain, from collection points where we buy directly from farmers and pay them quickly, to an end-to-end, temperature-controlled supply chain. We have cameras monitoring shelves that feed data into ML models and help us detect quality defects. At Amazon, we have built an ecosystem with a team of skilled agronomists who offer agricultural technology expertise to registered farmer partners to achieve better farm yields and better product quality. Agronomic Services is an application, interface using machine learning and computer vision-based algorithms that simplify supply chain processes, help farmers identify defects (rot, stains, cuts, mold) in fruits and vegetables, and reduce product waste. All fresh products come directly from farmers registered with Amazon sellers at the purchasing center and are sent to processing centers after thorough quality control. Fresh produce is then sorted, sorted and hygienically packaged in various sizes at processing centers and then shipped to Amazon Fresh fulfillment centers located closer to customers to meet delivery promises. We will continuously innovate to improve product quality and supply chain efficiency to provide our customers with the highest quality products.

About specific trends that Amazon Fresh observed on the Indian market during the summer season

This mango season, we have seen significant changes in market trends and consumer preferences at Amazon Fresh. Our best selling mango varieties include Banganpally, Ratnagiri Alphonso, Mango Sindhura, Mango Totapuri and Mango Kesar, with Banganpally establishing itself as an all-round favorite across India. We are also seeing growing interest in regional specialties such as Gulabkhas and Chinnarasalu, highlighting a broader consumer willingness to explore unique and local flavors.

In terms of geographical trends, Bengaluru leads in mango purchasing among metro cities, while Ahmedabad and Pune show strong involvement in non-metro areas. Moreover, we have seen an increase in demand for ice cream and dairy drinks, with the customer base in these categories growing by 20% and 33% respectively. At Amazon Fresh, we use these insights to continually improve our offerings, curating theme stores like Mango, IPL and Summer Store to meet a variety of tastes and preferences, providing our customers with exceptional quality, value and convenience.

Amazon Fresh leverages the knowledge gained from its global operations to adapt and differentiate itself in the Indian market

Some of the supply chain, last mile and warehousing technologies we use in India have been advanced first in global markets. We adapt this technology to local needs. The Indian market is unique in many respects. For example, the agricultural sector in India is quite unorganized, which prompted us to build a direct farm-to-fork supply chain with cold storage in the country. Customer preferences for food change every 100 kilometers, and there are many festivals throughout the year where customer needs change, so we had to make our selection very local and dynamic.