Ice-cream giant Vadilal has announced a partnership with hyperlocal fulfillment platform ZFW to scale its dark store business through 15 locations across Western India. ZFW enables the expansion of F&B and D2C brands to 100+ delivery locations across India without upfront capital investments, overheads, and headaches.

Vadilal traced its origin to 1926, when the humble Vadilal Soda Fountain outlet opened in Ahmedabad. As time passed, it amassed popularity and a loyal fan following for its authentic, delicious, and wide variety of ice cream flavors. Today, Vadilal has evolved from a small retail outlet to one of India's leading omnichannel ice-cream brands through product innovation and a customer-focused approach. The company has successfully taken on numerous global ice-cream makers who have often struggled to mark Indian consumers. With this partnership, Vadilal Ice-creams will be focusing on an asset-light strategy to reach its customers.

ZFW founder Madhav Kasturia said, "It's exciting to see a legacy brand like Vadilal diversify channels & focus on the dark store model to increase their footprint and growth. Supporting Vadilal in their dark store expansion is a major endorsement to our model and, more importantly, the hyperlocal fulfillment space. We aim to power Vadilal dark stores on the Western frontier and then down South."

More than a year of social distancing and economic disruptions have triggered subtle and seismic shifts in how Indians buy or consume products. Despite taking a major hit initially, consumer brands across categories witnessed a silver lining in the form of unprecedented demand for delivery. Supply chain and fulfillment costs often skyrocket as brands look to scale hyperlocal capabilities in existing and newer markets. ZFW steps in to assist through its OS platform and network of fulfillment centers.

Besides Vadilal, ZFW has also partnered with homegrown and international brands across categories such as Baskin Robbins, Keventers, Artinci, Habbit Health, NOTO Ice-cream, Beijing Street, among others. Marquee investors, accelerators back the startup, and angels across India and the US such as Mumbai Angels, Expert DOJO, Huddle, among others.

"Vadilal as a brand is committed to bringing the finest ice cream products to discerning consumers across various territories. While our commitment to continuously grow our retail channel remains steadfast, our partnership with a new-age platform like ZFW enables us to accelerate our cloud kitchens rollout in a relatively short span of time. Partners like ZFW enable us to reach every doorstep across Mumbai through food aggregator platforms like Swiggy, Zomato, etc," Vadilal Dairy International's whole-time director Rahil Gandhi said in a statement.

The ZFW platform is currently present in Delhi, Mumbai, and Pune and is on track to enter South India later this year.