Food Startups Now Have Healthy,
Creative Options on Their Menu
FOR A FITTER YOU
From
online salads, desi gathiya pizza and wheat flour cookies, they have it all
When it comes to food, colours, ingredients and
their combinations can spice up the most insipid meal. Entrepreneurs in the
food business know this instinctively, and have extended the principle to their
offline and online ventures. From online salad meals to desi gathiya pizza and
Vedic vegetarian food without onion and garlic they have done it all, aided
by health-conscious consumers.
Indore-based Akhil Kacholia, dropped out of his
chartered accountancy (CA) course much against his family's wishes -and
started Golden Sticks in 2012. Kacholia came up with the idea of replacing a
Western food base, which is mainly refined flour, with gram flour.
In addition, he used healthy Indian ingredients
to replace the junk component in the western food, keeping the taste intact
with a domestic twist. So, sandwich bread was replaced by gathiya (a popular
snack in Western India, made of gram flour) and brownies were replaced with
wheat flour cookies.
“Most western foods are based on maida, which is
unhealthy if consumed over a period of time,“ he says, adding he found demand
for his products from parents and young professionals worried about their daily
consumption of junk food. Golden Sticks sells 21 varieties across three outlets
in Indore, Godhra and Ahmedabad. It generates Rs 2-3 lakh revenue per month in
each outlet and has 80-85% repeat customers. By the end of this year, it plans
to add 10-15 outlets across India.
Similarly, Ahmedabad couple Rajiv and Khushboo
Sharma's start-up, Joules Juice Café, sells fruit juices and smoothies. Rajiv,
an IIT Kanpur graduate, quit his job with Tata Communication at Mumbai and
moved his family to Ahmedabad to open his juice startup.
In India, fruit juice is either available at
premium hotels or restaurants or at roadside fruit juice stalls, but there is
no concept of a juice café, says Sharma. “There are fruit juice shops, but they
are few in number and not standardised chains,“ she says, adding that an
increase in the health-conscious population has added to their success.
After three years of establishing `Joules Café',
the couple runs four outlets in Ahmedabad and one in Vadodara. They have
developed 60 varieties of fruit juices, shakes and smoothies, and are looking
at starting up multiple cafés and franchises all over Gujarat in the next three
years.
Another startup, LoveForSalad, delivers salads
through its online store.Started by Ahmedabad-based techie, Ashish Vyas,
LoveForSalad filling salad meals at consumers' doorstep. “Currently, if you
have no online option to order healthy food like salads, you end up ordering
junk food,“ says Vyas. He says he is providing an option to people who prefer
homecooked food and want to avoid greasy food outside for lunch or dinner.
Last year, Delhi-based Sattviko rolled out
`Vedic' vegetarian food without onion and garlic. “Although the Vedic
scriptures don't mention that only vegetarian food needs to be consumed, many
positive aspects of a vegan diet are mentioned in Ayur veda. We focus on
vegetarian food to add the Yogic or “Yoga“ factor to eating habits,“ says
Prasoon Gupta, cofounder and director, Sattviko.
According to Mr Gupta, onion and garlic are
herbs with medicinal characteristics, but if cooked with general food items,
turn into byproducts that come with their own side effects.“Stomach ailments
occur when food spiced with onion and garlic is consumed in large quantities,“
he says.
“A vegetarian dish without onion and garlic is a
USP in itself,“ he says, adding that he is targeting customers in the age group
of 25 to 35 years, who would like to take their families out for a memorable,
“pure vegetarian“ dinner. “We are also targeting health-conscious people who
want healthy meals with exotic tastes,“ he adds.
Sattviko's monthly revenue collection is at
around Rs 17 lakh. “We are poised to increase our monthly revenue generation by
three to four times,“ says Gupta, claiming his venture is the fastest-growing
QSR chain.
Beyond cooking meals and stirring up healthy
salads, startups are also active in the food reviewing space.Tummy Rat, another
Ahmedabadbased startup, is an online mobile app which offers a platform to
foodies to discuss, recommend, suggest options, in addition to upload pictures
of food joints, street food and homemade food.
|
Vishal Dutta
|
ET7MAR15
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