Some rumours spread in the local circuits that the food department had raided our oil mill, massive adulteration had been detected, and we closed the matter by paying a hefty bribe. When whispered carefully, people believe it to be true. It is spread like wildfire when you say it is a secret and not to be told to anyone. The gossip carries more weight when it is that of a famous brand that people trust. Negative news attracts people and brings the haters together. Such rumours are good for us in a way, as the brand gets more entrenched in people’s minds. But, few people believe this misinformation, and we wish to clarify this officially from our side.

Cocoguru brand has been built to benefit farmers and consumers. It delivers quality coconut oil to consumers who are repaying their faith in us. The brand is growing stronger by the day, getting into newer territories, adding more products, and improving its quality. You don’t have to believe us or the rumours unquestioningly. You may consider the following points before you form an opinion:

Premium product
Cocoguru is sold at a premium compared to other brands in the local market, so cutting costs by adulteration is unnecessary. It is not sustainable to sell at a premium by delivering inferior adulterated products.

Read more: cocoguru.com/blog/yet-another-price-increase

Brand
We believe in the power of the brand. We appreciate that the brand as an asset is more valuable than all the physical assets like land, buildings, plants and machinery, saleable inventory, etc. So, every activity we do should be geared towards building and nurturing the brand. Adulteration or shortcuts are the quickest ways to kill it. The Cocoguru brand is already 14 years old and built to last. We are in it for the long term, not just for short-term profits.
Read more: cocoguru.com/blog/adulteration-in-coconut-oil

Consumer push instead of retailer push
Cocoguru products are sold because of consumer demand in retail stores. In contrast to push by retailers for their benefit. To sustain this cycle, we should continue to satisfy and delight consumers rather than bribe retailers with better margins and payment terms.
Read more: cocoguru.com/blog/how-do-we-set-mrp

Sold at Super Markets and e-commerce portals
High-end, quality-conscious consumers buy our products through modern trade supermarkets and various e-commerce portals. Our challenge is to stand their scrutiny of quality and standards. They don’t stress us on prices, so there is no need for adulteration.
Read more: cocoguru.com/blog/cocoguru-is-now-available-at-reliance-smart-stores

User reviews
Please don’t believe what we say; it is better to think what other users have to say. In the days of social media and user-generated content, people are happy to review and recommend products based on their experience. Check the reviews and comments on social media platforms like Facebook & Instagram and eCommerce portals like Amazon & Flipkart. At the Amazon portal, 1000s of consumers buy coconut oil from us every month, and almost 3000 consumers have reviewed the products with a 4.3 to 4.4-star average rating. Check our ranking in the best sellers rank for coconut oil; it is in the top 20 list and among the top 8 brands in the country.

fssai random checks
Food Safety department conducts random tests of food products from the market. They don’t inform us; they test for quality at the CFTRI laboratory and take action based on their report. This way, fssai is supposed to ensure that the food products consumers buy from the market are safe. Our products have been picked and tested at Kasaragod, Udupi, Mangaluru, Chikkamagaluru, and Kodagu and are always safe. Yes, the department officials take bribes from brands and restrain them from acting against brands if they get satisfactory amounts from them. However, Kerala’s food department is very strict with coconut oil as it is their staple edible oil. They have listed a widely sold coconut oil from Karnataka as adulterated.
Read more: indiafilings.com/learn/fssai-food-testing-procedure/

Laboratory testing
If you are not convinced, test a random sample against the parameters listed by BIS for coconut oil at any laboratory and find the results for yourselves. The test parameters and the results we obtained are here.

Full accounting and Invoicing
All the transactions carried out at Cocoguru are accounted for and audited by multiple government revenue departments, such as Income Tax, GST, APMC, Labour, Factories, Food, etc. All the transactions carry a legal Invoice or document. So they can be traced and scrutinized.
Read more: cocoguru.com/statutory-info

Transparency and Information
We believe in transparency, and all information is easily available to anyone who seeks it. We don’t fear competitors copying our ideas, as that alone won’t give them the success that we have achieved. Our website is highly informative and detailed, and our social media pages are continuously updated and informative. We share our information only when we are confident about our activities, and it is good for the consumers.

Factory Visit
We work from 9:00 am to 6:00 pm from Monday to Saturday. Anyone interested is welcome to visit the oil mill. There is no need to inform us; randomly visit. The randomness of visits gives us no scope for any particular “preparation”. Experience the cleanliness, methodical process, and quality of raw materials and finished products. Ask us if you have any queries about the products and processes, and we will happily answer whether you buy the product from us or not.
 

cocoguru.com now has a new website and design. This is the 3rd design since it started. This time, the speciality is that the site is all self-developed. Here, I would like to share our development process and ideas.

Domain registration for cocoguru.com was done earlier with godaddy.com. Hosting was also done at godaddy.com’s server. Being a market leader in web domain and hosting space, it is also the best in business with minimum downtime and reliable service. Dealing with free hosts or any local hosting space provider can be painful at times.

Website static pages can be developed with HTML on a text editor or HTML editors like Dreamweaver. Also, websites can be developed with dynamic pages using Content Management System (CMS) software. They provide easy user interfaces where even common users can develop and maintain website pages. WordPress, Joomla, and Drupal are among the popular CMS software. WordPress.org from Automattic Inc. is the most popular free, open-source platform for website and blog development. Countless themes are designed, and plugins are developed to make the complete ecosystem pretty strong and vibrant. The latest version of WordPress 3.5 was installed directly from Godaddy’s hosting dashboard. Then, the complete website design and development is done by logging into the WordPress dashboard.

We strongly believe in minimalism, where the focus is only on what is required, i.e. content, and anything unwanted, i.e. flashy designs, is ruthlessly deleted. The latest default theme for WordPress, Twenty Twelve, was chosen for this site. It is free, and there are many other themes, some of which are paid. Once a theme is selected and systematically followed, the site developer can write his contents plainly in text and not bother about formatting. There may be some aspects of the theme that you may not like; they can be modified if you can, or you will have to just live with them. A few free plugins like Akismet (for spam protection), mappress (for showing maps), tablepress (for tables), sharethis (for social sharing buttons), formbuilder (for creating forms), etc., were installed.

Website pages can be developed by adding pages, and Blogs can be created by just adding posts. The WordPress dashboard has an easy Visual and Text editor for adding content. Each page/post comes with a comment form and a button for sharing on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, and email. The header, Footer, and Menu are common to all pages and posts.

The content posted is genuinely about us. I wrote it, and it is not a website development company. None of the text or photos are copied from other sites. They are free from jargon/exaggerations like customer satisfaction, high quality, modern infrastructure, excellent service, social responsibility, striving towards growth, etc. Photos are again taken by me with minimal editing to just crop the required portion. Information is openly shared to enable viewers to clearly understand about us.

Key Message
Small businesses need not use the services of Web Designers to get their website done. They will charge anywhere between 15,000 Rupees to 35,000 Rupees to get a flashy website done. Instead, you could do it yourself and write great content to attract visitors.

What Next
The present template is Twenty Twelve as it is. It needs to be customized to get the Cocoguru brand’s feel. More content is to be updated to make the site content rich.