FOOD STARTUP SPECIAL..... Different Cups of Tea

STARTUP  Different Cups of Tea





Offbeat food ventures are sprouting everywhere.
Here are five of them experimenting with new ideas

Opening a restaurant may come up pretty high on the list of the secret (or not so secret) ambitions of many millennials. It is not an ambition without travails and tears. These may be fewer if you choose not to open a restaurant but get into one of the offbeat food businesses. The opportunities are more, risks lower. And while you do need to sweat it out, the rewards are many.

One good thing about living in India now -when interest in food as entertainment is at an alltime high -is the potential to innovate and monetise that passion. Many exciting innovations in food are not happening in restaurants, but in the offbeat retail space. It is a market ruled by content, even if there are many stories of startups that refused to start. The failure rate of these new businesses is perhaps as high as that of restaurants. At least half of these were led by pipe dreams of funding. We only have to look at the dubious examples of many food-tech startups, now flailing. Yet, with a younger demographic raring to try out new things -at lower price points -new food formats are the Next Big Thing.

Here's my pick of five:

Green is the New Black

Salad Days

Started by: Varun Madan and Kunal Gangwani

What's Special:

Offers salads as a meal in Gurgaon, banks on the health quotient

Varun Madan and Kunal Gangwani played for the same band at Xavier School of Management, Jamshedpur. They jammed well but little did they realise that they would also, one day, toss up vinaigrette and greens.

“We both met up again when we wanted to start something of our own,“ says Madan, 32. Both zeroed in on salads “which form such a vital part of everyday meals in the world, but were lacking in India“. Madan developed a taste for the raw and the healthy while he was on the US West Coast, and Gangwani in Scandinavia. The two decided -without a background in food -to open Salad Days, a delivery-only venture in Gurgaon.

That was two years ago. There was a gap in the market for a product that offered salads as a complete meal. Equally, there was the perception that this would not work because “it is not like biryani that Indians are used to eating...salads are side dishes in our homes,“ says Madan. But they took the plunge.

With its smartly packaged offerings, Salad Days has been quite a success in Gurgaon. From a lean operation, it now has three kitchens. Marketing has been through social media and the customers are not limited to offices. At `240-400 per salad, it is not exactly your cheap dab p dab bawala lunch. But Madan and Gangwani, 28, seem to have tapped into an aspirational-meets-convenience need. “We have high repeats and customers who have spent `1 lakh a year on just salads for themselves,“ says Madan.

Operations have been the toughest part. Sourcing ingredients -they largely use imported fruit and veggies to maintain consistency, get cheese and vinegars from Parma and Modena “because the taste really is different“, and pick herbs grown in their own garden -and maintaining supply chains are a task.

Last year, the business attracted “a funding from Japan“. On small fun expansion to more areas the anvil is e in the Capital, beyond south Delhi, a retail outlet and backward integration with local farming communities.

The Salad Days duo are determined about not tossing it away. “We don't understand this bubble of food tech startups. Funding has become the goal of entrepreneurs. But people mess up the balance of growth in the quest to expand,“ says Madan. This one should be more wholesome.

Viability Quotient:

Salad Day operates on a net profit margin of 13%; operations need to be streamlined to up it to the industry range of 15-20%.

Truck It In

Eggjactly and Sushi House Mafia

Started by: Vikrant Misra, Lvanika Parti

What's Special:

These food trucks serve waffles, milkshakes and fries in the NCR

Food trucks have been trendy all over America for the past five years, serving up interesting, quirky menus at about $20 a meal. For Vikrant Misra, 33, who started one of the first food trucks in India two years ago, the inspiration was simpler. A former retail executive at Provogue, he and his business partner Lvanika Parti were scouting for a café location in Gurgaon, but soon realised that the investments required were too high -as was the risk. “Instead of a security deposit of `15-20 lakh for a location that may or may not work, I thought it was better to invest the same in a moveable restaurant that I could take to different places even if one location does not work,“ he says.

No one had any idea, though, about how to make a food truck. Misra ended up converting a “bank van“.

There are, however, some grey areas in legalities when it comes to food trucks.There's no policy regarding licensing --although the National Restaurant Association of India is canvassing for one. Eggjactly and Sushi House Mafia, Misra's two trucks -which he drives himself -are GPS-enabled and move around the NCR (people can track these through live social media posts). The food they serve is mostly American-style -eggs, waffles, milkshakes, fries -to appeal to young, corporate, “aspirational“ clients.All the food is made fresh, in front of you.

Getting the food out fast was a challenge, though. “We had to shut down operations for 10 days till the staff learnt how to cook and dish out food in five-seven minutes,“ says Misra.

Viability Quotient:

Profit margins are higher and investment lower than in restaurant retail. But you have to man the van in all kinds of terrain and weather. Also, there are too many variables and no clear government policy yet.

Little Big Fry

Bombay Local

Started by: Insia Lacewalla, Paresh Chhabria

What's Special:

It is a food festival in Mumbai that celebrates local food producers, home cooks, bakers

When Insia Lacewalla started Small Fry in Mumbai two years ago, Maximum City was going through a local food resurgence. There were scores of food producers doing high-quality local chocolate, artisanal cheese, home-baked desserts, snacks and more. Lacewalla -with a background in finance and stints at many different things, from fashion shows to films, to the handling of food and beverage for NH7 Weekenders -decided to try her hand at a passion project.

“I wanted food to be at the centrestage,“ says 29-year-old Lacewalla. So the Bombay Local food festival came up, putting local food producers, home cooks, caterers, bakers, cheese-makers on the map. “We had beer on tap, up-and-coming musicians jamming -that was the vibe,“ she says.

The market for food fes tivals is highly competi tive now. It is also more commercial with estab lished restaurants paying organisers huge stall fees. That is the business model, plus sponsorships.

Lacewalla and her business partner Paresh Chhabria, 27, however, remain true to the spirit of the original enterprise. They do not want sponsors to tamper with the small, artisanal format. Stall fee remains at `15,00020,000; and `150-200 is the entry fee for customers.

About 60 stalls, tightly curated, are put up for one day, from 7 pm to midnight, every quarter at the Khar Gymkhana.And every one sells out. “The producers are happy and so are we. It is a closely bonded community,“ says Lacewalla.Content is the key.

From the time they put up their pilot with desserts -13 home bakers under a roof for a five-hour sale -and were sold out in half that time, they have not looked back.

Viability Quotient:

Profit margin is 50-60% for each “local market“ they set up. The events are less commercial and thus have lower revenues. Partners run other consulting businesses.

Butter Chicken on the Beach

Goila Butterchicken

Started by: Saransh Goila

What's Special:

Delivers to Mumbai homes the not-so-rich butter chicken that made Goila famous on social media and TV

Saransh Goila is a well-known name on television -having hosted two food-based shows -and on social media. So funding should not have been a problem when he wanted to start his own “real“ venture. It wasn't. Except that 28-year-old Goila wanted no investor interference in what he describes as a pilot for Goila Butterchicken. It is his delivery-only startup that plays on the dish he is best associated with, thanks to his butter chicken pop-ups that have become popular on Twitter.

From butter chicken rolls to a range of kulchas (chicken rezala, mattar-paneermango, gongura pork) that you can eat alongside the BC, the menu is short and “cool“ and designed for young consumers who want higher quality food than the neighbourhood takeaway.

Goila and his business partner Vivek Sahni, also a chef, have invested personal funds of about `10 lakh each in the project. And they seem to have done their math. “Instead of a quick service restaurant or a takeaway with an investment of `15-20 lakh, I decided to do a delivery because you can leverage social media for it -at the same cost. For every `30 spent on social media I hope to get at least one customer who will order. I plan to spend `50,000 a month, which should hopefully ensure 1,000 customers per month,“ says Goila, who has a substantial following on Twitter and Facebook.

The kitchen is in Andheri, Mumbai, for now; Goila wants to go to Bengaluru and Kolkata this year, for which he will seek investors.

This will be an interesting experiment where a chef is leveraging both his cooking skills and social media presence for a business venture.

Viability Quotient:

According to some calculations, to be profitable, Goila needs 100 people eating every day (dishes are priced in the `250-300 bracket). Will they bite?

Come Eat With Us

Commeat

Started by: Ruchika

What's Special: An online community of home cooks who open up their homes to travellers and guests

Commeat -started by 34-year old Ruchika (last name withheld on request) -is short for “community eating“. The idea is simple but fills a big gap: creating an online community of credible home cooks, who can open up their homes to travellers and guests looking for “authentic“ experiences.

Leveraging social media to bring the dining table -“the centre of social interactions in older times,“ as Ruchika says -back in fashion is a bit ironical. But it is an idea whose time has come.

The Commeat website documents recipes of different home cooks, who are chosen with care, and posts short videos of them. A bank of recipes is just one of the aims. Small pilots, where dinners for six-eight people are sold as intimate, at-home experiences, have been initiated.

Viability Quotient:

It is not monetised yet, but linking travellers to home-food experiences is a business to look forward to.

Anoothi Vishal

ET13MAR16