Ideaz

Idea: KingCoy- handcrafted , nutritious fish food made in India,made for India-healthy fish, afforadble prices.

Problem 

According to PMMSY (Pradhan mantrai matsya sampada yojana) there about 1.25% of urban homes having an aquarium in our country , and ornamental fish market of India is USD 181.7 million in 2022 and 11.6% per year growth in India. Clearly showing the demand for them, but the challenge remains fish food and aquarium accessories. 

Currently the Indian aquarium accessories and fish-food market is dominated by Chinese products that are very cheap but are killing both the fish and the water quality, they are just flour with a  label, fed to fish resulting in their early deaths. If left uneaten then they make the water cloudy.  On the other side there are Japanese and North American brands that offer good quality, improving the fish's overall health and are suitable for aquascaping, but  they are too pricy, like way too pricy. Not all shop owners and hobbyist can afford buying them.  

The Solution 

 Made in India aquarium Brand, KingCory , providing “affordable” , nutritious fish food as our MVP , with a roadmap to essential accessories like water heater and filters. The main idea is that good nutrition is given to the fish and shrimp in the aquarium with the customers wallet also kept in check.  

Not to confuse the customers we only have 3 types of food, that we are going to sell- one for omnivores ones , carnivores and for algae eating ones. Not D2C but a retail-first brand, supplying made in India aquarium accessories. 

Gaps  

As mentioned earlier there are two extremes to this story the first is the cheaper extreme, namely the Chinese ones, there are not many Chinese brands out there but only a few that dominate the Indian ornamental fish market, these are just sold for less than ₹ 100 and they provide 200 –300 grams quantity. It is full of flour and crude protein, each fish has its own requirement, and these products don't fulfil any of it.  They degrade the overall quality i.e. the water becomes cloudy due to the ammonia spike which is disastrous for planted aqauriums, with just a few granules of food left uneaten, this is very frequent when we use this sort of food .

Now on the other extreme ,there are Japanese and north American products that are made of very good quality ingredients. They also sell  different food as per the requirement of different fish confusing the customer but that is not there major flaw, they have lab tested their food and have years of experience but there major drawback is that, there  price is way too high. 

One example is Hikari , NASA  has chosen it  for its special diet for "Space Shuttle" fish keeping experiments. But in India there price is ₹ 383 for 22 grams, yes only 22 grams! Same goes for ADA another Japanese product 70 grams for ₹ 1400.  

So our made in India brand  "KingCory" can bridge this gap.

 Who benefits? 

Users (aquarium owner and hobbyists) - it's a win-win situation for the customers, our good quality and multi-ingredient fish food which is only going to enhance the color of the fish, keep them out of stress and keep them active. Without paying huge amounts for them. 

Shopkeepers- it's also gonna benefit them, as they  mostly can't afford to buy large quantities of imported fish food so they go toward the cheap Chinese alternatives, but now the markets can have a breakthrough with local brands entering the competition, the shopkeepers can have even better margins with our brand , the Chinese ones also offer them good margins. 

Why it matters to me? 

I, myself, am an enthusiastic hobbyist, who loves keeping all kinds of fishes  - tropical Amazonians, native species, even exotic ones as well. As discussed, around here I usually see two extremes, cheap low-quality imports, that do more harm than good, or premium brands sold at only aquascaping stores. There are a few Indian brands, but they compete on the same cheap price, as the Chinese ones which, from my personal experience can tell you that they only devastate the water if the fish leave them uneaten. That forced me to go online to buy from some local startups mostly confined to Chennai, Bangalore or Mumbai, with far less reach and poor delivery or the alternative is to buy small sachets of imported Japanese or Canadian ones. So, to meet the requirements of thousands of such hobbyists I came with “KingCory”. 

Technical details and ingredient  

 We will first start by lab testing and tweaking the ingredients until right the nutrition and chemical profile is reached - not based on gut felling but by verified protiens, fats and trace vitamins. 

Each product or each 'can' will be handcrafted. Each of our 3 products varities will have different ingredients according to nutrition profile of each type fish.

Whether make 100 packets or 10,000 of them I want it all handmade. All raw materials under our control so we can change the price accordingly leaving us being more flexible compared to branded companies .

To conclude , Our brand KingCory - a retail-first , Made-in-India brand  offering handcafted, labtested and afforable fishfood as our MVP to fill in gap between poor Imports and  costly premuim feeds. The 3 targeted fishfood formulas boost fish healthy, maintains water quality and provides the local shop with better margins. Heaters and filters are also on the road map.