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★ Lead Story

1 day ago · 2 min read

A 50-year-old Delhi grocer has closed half its stores, and the reason is a ten-minute app

On September 6, Mint reported that Modern Bazaar, one of Delhi-NCR's oldest premium grocery chains, has cut its store network from about 28 to 30 outlets a year ago to around 14 today. More stores are being reviewed for closure or relocation. A store at Select Citywalk mall, one of the city's busiest, was shut on Saturday with a closed sign on the door.

The retailer turns over about Rs 250 crore a year and has been trading for five decades. Its founders told Mint the restructuring is a response to quick commerce, which has changed the size, location and economics that a physical supermarket can support. They also said the chain is not exiting physical retail; the aim is a smaller network that makes money.

The customer Modern Bazaar built its name on, the imported-cheese, olive-oil, gourmet-snacks shopper in South Delhi and Gurugram, is exactly the customer Blinkit, Zepto and Instamart went after first. Those apps now stock the same premium assortment and deliver it in ten minutes. The store's edge was range; the app has the range and the doorstep.

The numbers around it explain the pressure. Blinkit and Instamart are raising dark-store capex to about Rs 2.5 crore per store from Rs 1 crore, as newer stores cross 5,000 sq ft and carry wider assortments. A 5,000 sq ft dark store with a premium range is, functionally, a Modern Bazaar without the rent of a mall or the footfall it needs.

The question the founders are now answering is not whether to keep stores but which ones earn their rent. The answer, so far, is half.

Modern Bazaar is the first named casualty of a pattern the trade has been describing for two years. Distributors have petitioned the CCI against the same three apps, and FMCG distributor bodies have asked for stricter storage norms on dark stores. Premium urban grocery was the format most exposed because it depended on a small number of high-spending, time-poor households in a few pin codes, which is precisely the density quick commerce needs to make a dark store pay.

Who wins from the closures is not only the apps. Mall landlords lose an anchor category that drew weekday footfall. Specialty brands that used gourmet stores as their discovery shelf now depend on app search and paid placement, where the listing fee replaces the slotting fee. And large-format value grocers such as DMart, which sell on price rather than range, are less exposed, because a ten-minute delivery of a Rs 2,000 basket cannot match their unit economics on staples.

The caveat is that Modern Bazaar's problems are not all external. Mint also reports financial and management trouble inside the company. A retailer with a stronger balance sheet might have used the same moment to shrink and convert stores into its own dark stores, as Reliance and Tata have done. Modern Bazaar's founders say they want to compete in the new format; the store count suggests they are buying time to work out how.

Today's Top 5

5 stories

FSSAI · 1 day ago

The food regulator has sent over 150 notices this year, and the list reads like a brand index

On September 6, Business Standard reported that 2026 has become the first year of a sustained food-safety crackdown in India. In August, FSSAI put a number to it: more than 150 notices to companies for misleading advertisements, false claims and labelling violations.

The named recipients include PepsiCo India, Coca-Cola India, Mondelez India, Nestle India, Danone India, Ferrero India, Pernod Ricard, Diageo, Red Bull India and Abbott India. Hotels such as Hilton, Marriott and Radisson, and outlets including KFC, Pizza Hut, Domino's, McDonald's and Costa Coffee have also faced action on hygiene or labelling. Several marquee brands have had licences suspended and reinstated.

The regulator's officials initially put the visibility down to social media. By the second half of the year it was clear that FSSAI at the Centre and state FDAs, Maharashtra in particular, were acting together. Food processing is about 32% of India's total food market, so the target is a large one.

The practical cost lands on marketing before manufacturing. Most of the notices concern claims on packs and in advertising, not contamination. That means the sugar-free, immunity, protein and natural claims that have driven premium pricing for five years now carry a compliance risk that did not exist in 2024. Expect quieter packs and slower launches in the categories that leaned hardest on claims.

The second-order effect is on the long tail. Large companies can absorb a licence suspension for a week. A cloud kitchen or a regional snack maker cannot. If enforcement stays at this pace, the crackdown will consolidate share toward the brands with legal and quality teams, which is the opposite of what the small-business lobby wanted from tighter rules on the big names.

Asian Paints · 1 day ago

Paint makers raised prices again and still expect volumes to grow 8 to 10% this year

On September 6, PTI reported that Asian Paints, Berger Paints, Kansai Nerolac and JSW Dulux are all pushing fresh price increases into the festive season while guiding for continued growth. Asian Paints expects 8 to 10% volume growth for FY27; Berger and JSW Dulux expect double-digit revenue growth.

Asian Paints reported a 39.6% jump in June-quarter consolidated net profit to Rs 1,559 crore on revenue up 18% to Rs 10,542 crore. Berger expects second-quarter volumes of 7.5 to 8% with price increases of 7.5 to 8.6%. Kansai Nerolac has taken about 5% in the first quarter and expects another 3% in decorative and 3 to 5% in industrial paints.

The volume is coming from smaller towns and government-led construction. Asian Paints said growth in metros trailed tier-3 and tier-4 markets, and that competition is intense across economy, premium and luxury, with heavier discounting in economy to win contractors.

Two years ago the story was that Birla Opus, JSW Paints and Pidilite's Haisha would break the incumbents' pricing power. The numbers say the opposite: the market has absorbed back-to-back hikes and the leader's profit rose 40%. Paint demand is tied to housing completions and infrastructure, which are less price-sensitive than a household deciding between two shampoos, so the raw-material pass-through is holding.

The risk is crude. The bulk of paint inputs are petroleum-derived, and with oil above $90 the sector is guiding on prices it does not fully control. If crude stays high through Diwali, the next hike will test whether contractors trade down to the new entrants who are discounting to build share.

Mokobara · 2 days ago

A luggage brand that doubled sales to Rs 230 crore has raised Rs 170 crore to keep going

On September 5, Inc42 reported that Mokobara, the Bengaluru travel and lifestyle brand, has raised Rs 170 crore, about $18 million, in a Series C round led by Sauce.vc, which put in Rs 109 crore. Peak XV Partners, AYRA Ventures and Niveshaay also participated. The company last raised $12 million at an $80 million valuation in 2024.

Operating revenue nearly doubled to Rs 230 crore in FY25 from Rs 117 crore, while the loss widened to Rs 10.2 crore from Rs 4.2 crore. Mokobara runs about 50 stores across Bengaluru, Delhi, Mumbai and Pune, sells on Amazon and Flipkart, and opened its first store abroad in Dubai in February 2025.

It competes with VIP, American Tourister and Safari at the top of the market, and with Wildcraft, uppercase and Eume among the newer brands. India's luggage industry is projected to reach Rs 26,700 crore by 2028.

Luggage is one of the few consumer categories where a D2C brand can charge a premium and still grow, because the purchase is infrequent, visible and tied to travel, which is rising. Mokobara's Rs 230 crore on a Rs 10 crore loss is a very different profile from the beauty brands being repriced this month; the loss is small relative to sales, and the round is growth capital rather than rescue.

The test is the store network. Fifty stores on Rs 230 crore is about Rs 4.6 crore per store if everything went through them, which it does not. The incumbents sell through thousands of multi-brand outlets at lower rent. If Mokobara's stores are discovery rather than sales engines, the new money buys brand; if they are the sales engine, it buys rent.

Electronics · 1 day ago

Chinese CCTV makers held a third of India's market. A certification rule has shut them out.

On September 7, Business Standard reported that a mandatory government certification requirement in force since April 1 has effectively blocked Chinese network camera makers, including Hikvision and Dahua, from selling in India. Before April, Chinese companies held about a third of a $2 to 2.5 billion market growing at more than 16% a year, and most core components were imported from China.

Indian manufacturers have moved in. Aditya Infotech (CP Plus), Prama India, VVDN Technologies, Matrix Comsec, Qubo (Hero Electronix) and others have received certification for more than 196 network camera models up to August, according to MeitY. About 2.5 million units are sold in India every year.

The rule has also shifted chip sourcing. Camera makers are buying their system-on-chips from Taiwan, South Korea, the US and Singapore instead of China, at least for now.

This is the same playbook that worked in smartphones and, earlier, in television sets: block the import by rule rather than tariff, and let assembly grow behind the wall. The difference is that surveillance is a security category, so the certification has a national-interest rationale that a duty on phones never had, which makes it harder to reverse.

The risk is cost and quality. Chinese cameras won a third of the market on price and features. If Indian brands hold share only because the rule removed the competitor, the buyer, often a state government or a housing society, pays more for less until domestic chip design catches up. Watch whether prices per unit rise this festive season.

Chalet Hotels · 1 day ago

A hotel owner that only ever owned hotels is now franchising, managing and building its own brand

On September 6, Chalet Hotels told PTI it aims to reach about 5,500 hotel keys by FY30, from 3,389 operational today and a pipeline of about 2,300. The company, which historically owned every property it ran, now runs three models at once: third-party operated hotels such as the Ritz-Carlton Hyderabad, franchised properties such as a 380-room Taj at Delhi Airport, and its own brand, Athiva.

Athiva, launched in 2025, has a pipeline of 1,200 to 1,300 keys after new projects in Pune and Hyderabad. The Taj at Delhi Airport is expected to open about 70 rooms by the end of this financial year; the Ritz-Carlton Hyderabad, Hyatt Regency Airoli and a Udaipur hotel are due in FY29, and the Pune Yerawada project in FY31.

Chalet also runs about 2.4 million sq ft of commercial space with 900,000 sq ft under construction, and says it can fund the pipeline without materially raising debt.

The shift to an own brand is the interesting part. Owning a hotel and paying Marriott or Taj a fee means the brand captures the loyalty and the owner captures the real estate. Athiva is Chalet's attempt to keep both, at the moment when Indian domestic travel is growing fast enough that a home-grown upscale brand can fill rooms without a global name on the door. IHCL's Ginger and Lemon Tree have already shown the model works at the mid-market.

The caveat is that 5,500 keys by FY30 is a target, not a booking. Hotel pipelines in India slip routinely, and three of the named projects are dated FY29 or later. What matters this year is whether the first 70 rooms at Delhi Airport open on time.

⚡ 30-Second Scan

Amazon India has created over 1.6 lakh seasonal roles for the festive season across 400 cities, including tens of thousands in its Amazon Now quick-commerce network; Meesho says 73% of its Rakhi orders came from non-metro markets (Business Standard – PTI).

TCS HyperVault will invest Rs 70,000 crore in an AI data centre in Hyderabad, adding to a week in which Krafton committed $250 million to Indian AI and deeptech startups (Inc42).

Amara Raja Energy & Mobility paid Rs 6.76 crore in brand royalty to its promoter family's private company in FY26, about 0.05% of Rs 13,814 crore revenue, joining a growing list of Indian groups charging listed companies for family-owned names (Mint).

Sourced from public reporting; analysis by The Insight Labs.

Sources: Mint, Business Standard, PTI, Inc42.

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