In Disney’s Oscar-prevailing film Ratatouille, interpreting Chef Auguste Gusteauâ’s cookbook — Anyone can cook dinner — food critic Anton Ego said, “Not all and sundry can come to be a terrific cook (artist), however a exquisite cook dinner can come from anywhere.”
In India, wherein new thoughts and enterprise fashions are springing up inside the foodtech industry, Bengaluru-based startup, FoodyBuddy has give you a platform where each person can be a chef and promote their meals to their neighbourhood.
Speaking to Inc42, Rachna Rao, one of the founders of the foodtech startup explains, “While working at my preceding agency Zynga, I didn’t have any time to cook dinner. However, I changed into acquainted with having home-cooked food.”
Recently, Prime Ventures Partners (PV) invested $833K (INR 6 Cr) in FoodyBuddy. This is the first time, the venture capital company is making an investment in an Indian foodtech startup.
When there are a number of foodtech platforms emerging fast, what made PV put money into FoodyBuddy? Amit Somani, managing associate, Prime Venture Partners said, “We see a huge ability in serving a big base of customers who are searching out real, comforting, and a diffusion of domestic-cooked meals.”
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The corporation plans to apply the funds to enlarge into new geographies such as Hyderabad, Gurgaon and Pune and construct the community in Bengaluru. The corporation already has a handful of community reach in Hyderabad and Pune, and it pursuits to amplify similarly. With over 1,000 lively homechefs and 20,000 households served, FoodyBuddy is seeking to onboard 1,00,000 domestic chefs by using quit of 2019.
How Does It Work
Funding aside, how does FoodyBuddy put in force its concept of being an e-market for domestic-cooked meals?
Rao says, “The platform could be very bendy for sellers. It gives desire to the dealers to sell whatever they may be cooking. For instance, if I shall be cooking Rajma chawal in dinner and need to sell 5 plates of identical. The platform offers that desire to them. Further, I can also teach that food could be served with the aid of 8 o’clock, and as a result buyers need to reserve earlier than 4 o’ clock handiest.”
“So, by the point, I will be cooking food, I understand how a great deal I need to cook. This reduces meals waste,” Rao added.
Pune-based totally MealTango is another foodtech startup which offers home-cooked food online.
On the logistics facet, cofounder Anup Gopinath stated that since the purpose is to cater to neighbourhoods only, there’s no deliver chain or shipping problems. Mostly, it’s the sellers’ family individuals who deliver the food.
The range is more often than not inside the condo or the neighbourhood apartments depending upon the choice of sellers.
In the case FoodBuddy, at the same time as the sellers are totally specific than that of Swiggy and Zomato, the customers are greater or much less the equal.
How It Started
In rural India, people in neighbourhood are nevertheless used to proportion their domestic-cooked food. Rachna desired to introduce the identical social join and experience of believe in cities as properly. “The idea struck to me what if we may want to have the same food what our neighbours are having!”
Rao didn’t should search a whole lot for the partners. Her husband Akil Sethuraman and her former colleague Anup Gopinath both favored the idea and decided to cofound the startup in 2015.
The next twelve months wasn’t clean although. “We spent the complete 12 months in market studies and people comments over the concept. The idea wasn’t confined to having or promoting domestic-cooked food however, at the same time, the concept became to offer a platform to wannabe cooks,” says Rachna
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In 2017, with a handful of network, we commenced Foodybuddy in South Bengaluru. And, inside two years, the company has grown to the level wherein citizens of more than a hundred condominium communities are the use of FoodyBuddy, which has offered more than 250,000 meals until date and reaches 20,000 families.
Does the FSSAI food certification rely?
Gopinath says, “Most of the folks who come on Foodybuddy are categorized as very small-scale sellers. They don’t need any license to operate. However, they simply need to be registered which we ask them before onboarding.”
“Mostly, humans offer or sell only what make for themselves. For example, you are making rajma chawal for lunch, you may keep the orders open before cooking. The level of believe could be very-very excessive in this version as they live nearby,” he adds.
Home cooks and home-cooked meals services are a brand new and fast-rising category inside the Indian food services industry. Growing at eleven%, the Indian food offerings industry is pegged to round $fifty seven Bn (INR 4 Tn) by way of 2018-end, in line with National Restaurant Association of India.
While Swiggy and Zomato are hogging all the limelight, the course beforehand won’t be easy for FoodyBuddy, given the reality that a number of foodtech startups including Yumist, Twigly, MonkeyBox and Dazo recently needed to shut down their operations.
