Hari Rao: An I-T officer turns entrepreneur with carbon-free stove
On a Saturday afternoon, two of Bengaluru's top hoteliers walked into a garage, off 11th Cross Road, Anepalya, a busy street in the city. C S Sunderraju and K Nagaraju, promoters of the 168-room Atria hotel in downtown, walked out an hour later with their latest acquisition — an innovative industrial stove that promises to save them lakhs of rupees in operational costs.
"That's our first sale," said Hari Rao, an income-tax official-cumentrepreneur, as he rushed back into the garage where he had just cooked a scrumptious meal on a smokeless, carbon-free stove he developed.
Rao's hour-long sales pitch included making a full course meal comprising of Hyderabadi Dum Biriyani, crispy dosas, kebabs and 'Double ka meetha' for dessert. But the clincher was its energy saving potential. The stove promises to save more than 50% of fuel (LPG) in industrial kitchens. It's also a carbon and smoke free, which means utensils can be cleaned with lesser soap and maintaining the kitchen becomes easier. Rao has floated a startup called Agnisumukh to commercialise the indigenously developed stove.
Supriya Chellappan, a member of Rao's team, has been using this stove in a kitchen she runs at IT major Infosys' Thiruvananthapuram office, serving nearly 1,000 people every day, since January. She said it has brought down their cost of operations to a third. "We save on gas, soap, water and manual labour as well," said Chellappan, who holds a PhD in economics.
She is hopeful that Infosys will use the stove across its campuses. "If they like our technology, it could be used across their kitchens in the country."
Rao, joint commissioner of income tax in Bengaluru, started working on these stoves in mid-2000 as a side project during a break from his government job. The stoves, equipped with ceramic burners, are smokeless and do not leave any residue while cooking. Because ceramic heats up and starts radiating on its own, a uniform heat is created and to save fuel. "The idea comes from the three stone stoves that our grandmothers used to cook," said Rao. The stove mimicked the three-stoned stove from the olden days, but uses liquefied petroleum gas instead of charcoal.
Rao launched Agnisumukh with the help of TS Umesh, who designs industrial kitchens, Samson John, a green energy consultant, V B Krishnan, an award winning missile scientist, and, Maheshwar Bandham, a chartered accountant. Umesh, who mentors Agnisumukh, has also created dosa stoves, tandoor, barbeque oven, bakery oven, warmers/baine marie, deep fat fryers and steam boiler unit, using the same technology. For Rao, who loves to cook, it all began when his friend Anwar Hussain, a senior official in the railways, encouraged him to put his cooking skills to better use a decade ago. In 2005, Hussain helped Rao start a restaurant called Dakhani Degh, which served Hyderabadi Cuisine. "That didn't scale because we didn't have a lot of resources," Rao said.
Then, he began a quest to standardise Indian cuisine. The next few years, he spent standardising over 600 recipes with chef Kasi Viswanathan of the Atria Hotel and M A Rahim (Saleem Bhai), a nawabi chef who'd shut his restaurant in Hyderabad, and is developing the industrial stove and utensils to go with it. The standardised recipes have been fed into a software program that can pick out the exact quantity of ingredients depending on the portions. The software can be used to keep track of the inventory in the store.
"We have even standardised recipe of the famous potli-ka-masala for haleem," said Rao. The masala, with over 36 herbs is one of the toughest to make.
If Agnisumukh takes off , then the team will launch a readymade masala brand as well.
By Jayadevan PK, ET 20 Dec, 2014
On a Saturday afternoon, two of Bengaluru's top hoteliers walked into a garage, off 11th Cross Road, Anepalya, a busy street in the city. C S Sunderraju and K Nagaraju, promoters of the 168-room Atria hotel in downtown, walked out an hour later with their latest acquisition — an innovative industrial stove that promises to save them lakhs of rupees in operational costs.
"That's our first sale," said Hari Rao, an income-tax official-cumentrepreneur, as he rushed back into the garage where he had just cooked a scrumptious meal on a smokeless, carbon-free stove he developed.
Rao's hour-long sales pitch included making a full course meal comprising of Hyderabadi Dum Biriyani, crispy dosas, kebabs and 'Double ka meetha' for dessert. But the clincher was its energy saving potential. The stove promises to save more than 50% of fuel (LPG) in industrial kitchens. It's also a carbon and smoke free, which means utensils can be cleaned with lesser soap and maintaining the kitchen becomes easier. Rao has floated a startup called Agnisumukh to commercialise the indigenously developed stove.
Supriya Chellappan, a member of Rao's team, has been using this stove in a kitchen she runs at IT major Infosys' Thiruvananthapuram office, serving nearly 1,000 people every day, since January. She said it has brought down their cost of operations to a third. "We save on gas, soap, water and manual labour as well," said Chellappan, who holds a PhD in economics.
She is hopeful that Infosys will use the stove across its campuses. "If they like our technology, it could be used across their kitchens in the country."
Rao, joint commissioner of income tax in Bengaluru, started working on these stoves in mid-2000 as a side project during a break from his government job. The stoves, equipped with ceramic burners, are smokeless and do not leave any residue while cooking. Because ceramic heats up and starts radiating on its own, a uniform heat is created and to save fuel. "The idea comes from the three stone stoves that our grandmothers used to cook," said Rao. The stove mimicked the three-stoned stove from the olden days, but uses liquefied petroleum gas instead of charcoal.
Rao launched Agnisumukh with the help of TS Umesh, who designs industrial kitchens, Samson John, a green energy consultant, V B Krishnan, an award winning missile scientist, and, Maheshwar Bandham, a chartered accountant. Umesh, who mentors Agnisumukh, has also created dosa stoves, tandoor, barbeque oven, bakery oven, warmers/baine marie, deep fat fryers and steam boiler unit, using the same technology. For Rao, who loves to cook, it all began when his friend Anwar Hussain, a senior official in the railways, encouraged him to put his cooking skills to better use a decade ago. In 2005, Hussain helped Rao start a restaurant called Dakhani Degh, which served Hyderabadi Cuisine. "That didn't scale because we didn't have a lot of resources," Rao said.
Then, he began a quest to standardise Indian cuisine. The next few years, he spent standardising over 600 recipes with chef Kasi Viswanathan of the Atria Hotel and M A Rahim (Saleem Bhai), a nawabi chef who'd shut his restaurant in Hyderabad, and is developing the industrial stove and utensils to go with it. The standardised recipes have been fed into a software program that can pick out the exact quantity of ingredients depending on the portions. The software can be used to keep track of the inventory in the store.
"We have even standardised recipe of the famous potli-ka-masala for haleem," said Rao. The masala, with over 36 herbs is one of the toughest to make.
If Agnisumukh takes off , then the team will launch a readymade masala brand as well.
By Jayadevan PK, ET 20 Dec, 2014
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