By Haresh Jhala:
Japesh Jayadhevan on consumers, innovation and scaling beyond Gujarat
The biggest risk in a growing consumer business may not be competition.
It may be believing that you already understand your customer.
Hocco’s rapid growth offers an interesting case in point. In the ice-cream business, there was a long-standing assumption that rural and smaller-town consumers were primarily looking for affordable products—often priced at ₹5 or ₹10.
Hocco’s experience has challenged that assumption.
Consumers outside the metros, says Japesh Jayadhevan, CEO of Hocco Foods, have changed significantly. Social media has exposed them to global trends. Travel has broadened their experiences. Their expectations around taste and quality have evolved.
And they are increasingly willing to pay when they see genuine value.
That observation goes well beyond ice cream. For founders, it raises a fundamental question:
Are you selling to the customer you know—or the customer your market is becoming?
When the market surprises you
Rapid growth can sometimes reveal something more valuable than growth itself: a market assumption that was wrong.
The belief that consumers in smaller markets will automatically choose the cheapest product can become a convenient shortcut for FMCG companies. But consumers do not necessarily think in such simple categories.
They may be price-conscious and still aspire to better taste, better quality and new experiences.
Hocco appears to have benefited from recognising that shift.
The lesson for founders is not to abandon price sensitivity as a consideration. It is to stop treating it as the only explanation for consumer behaviour.
Markets change. Consumer aspirations change faster.
The company that notices that change early gets an opportunity before the market consensus catches up.
Product or distribution? Build both.
There is another familiar FMCG debate: what matters more—product or distribution?
Jayadhevan’s answer is refreshingly straightforward: both are hard, and neither can survive without the other.
A strong product that cannot reach consumers cannot build a business. A wide distribution network carrying a product consumers do not want to buy again cannot sustain one.
That is why product positioning becomes particularly important in a category such as ice cream, where taste is subjective and consumers have abundant choices.
Hocco’s product strategy reflects an attempt to make the product itself part of the proposition.
The company sources chocolate from Ghana, almonds from California, saffron from Kashmir and buffalo milk from Mehsana.
The strategic lesson is not that imported or geographically distinctive ingredients automatically create a better brand.
It is that the value proposition has to be built into the product itself.
As Jayadhevan puts it, assumptions cannot convince the market. Manufacturers have to understand what the market actually wants.
Don’t manage channels. Understand consumers.
Hocco’s approach to traditional retail and quick commerce offers another useful lesson.
Jayadhevan does not see channel conflict as inevitable.
The real issue is understanding who is using the channel and why.
Younger consumers are spending more time on social media, are comfortable ordering online and are often more willing to experiment. So the products presented to them can be designed around that behaviour.
That explains the logic behind innovations such as Strawberry Matcha.
At the retail counter, Hocco can create a different kind of curiosity with something like Gulab Jamun ice cream—a familiar Indian taste presented in a new format.
The underlying strategy is more important than either flavour.
Different consumers can need different reasons to try the same brand.
Innovation, therefore, is not simply about launching something new.
It is about understanding which consumer you want to attract, what they find interesting and what will make them take the first bite.
But novelty has a limit.
The surprise may generate trial.
The product has to earn the repeat purchase.
Regional roots do not require regional ambitions
Hocco’s expansion beyond Gujarat raises another question familiar to growing businesses: how does a regional brand become a larger brand without losing what made it distinctive?
Jayadhevan’s answer is to avoid getting too caught up in the regional-versus-national label.
Hocco may have been born in Gujarat, but its ambition is much wider.
More importantly, he says every competitor deserves to be taken seriously—even a small player with strength in one particular market.
That is a valuable competitive lesson.
A competitor’s geographical size tells you very little about its capability.
A smaller regional player may understand its customer better, have stronger local distribution or possess a product advantage that a larger company has overlooked.
Similarly, national scale does not automatically guarantee superiority.
Study what the competitor does well—not simply how big it is.
The founder’s job: keep challenging the obvious
Perhaps the most useful lesson from Jayadhevan’s thinking is his advice to entrepreneurs:
Challenge the status quo.
That sounds familiar. But its practical meaning is deeper.
Growth itself can create new assumptions.
What worked at ₹50 crore may not work at ₹500 crore. The customer who once behaved one way may have changed. A channel that once mattered most may no longer dominate. A competitor once considered insignificant may become relevant.
Success can therefore create its own blind spots.
The founder’s responsibility is to keep questioning them.
Ask:
Are our customers changing?
Are our assumptions still valid?
Are we innovating for the market—or simply for ourselves?
Are we measuring competitors by their size rather than their strengths?
For a growing consumer business, these questions may matter more than the next product launch.
Hocco’s story is ultimately not just about ice cream.
It is about how a company responds when the market refuses to behave according to the industry’s old assumptions.
And that may be the most important lesson for a founder:
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