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Tag: foodtech

  • Petpooja: Success Story of India’s No.1 Restaurant Management Software

    Company Profile is an initiative by StartupTalky to publish verified information on different startups and organizations. The content in this post has been approved by Petpooja.

    The relationship of Indians with their food is intimate. The food here in India is an emotion that also reflects the country’s culture and its personality. One can be amazed by the vast variety of food items India has to offer as each State has its version of edible items.

    Indian culture beholds the extensive and rich food culture as well. Due to the infusion of a wide list of delicacies, the concept of the restaurant business has also taken over all of India. Today, we have thousands of food chains, hotels, and restaurants offering numerous different dishes based on a variety of cuisines.

    While food is not only limited to India but is an important aspect in most countries. The food business has widely become popular in almost all parts of the country. To help with this restaurant business some companies manage and help organize unorganized food and beverage sectors.

    Petpooja is one such company that offers restaurant management software for the F&B retail market. The company was founded in 2011 and is headquartered in Ahmedabad, Gujarat.

    Discover more about Petpooja’s startup story, how it works, industry details, founder, competitors, challenges faced, and future plans.

    Petpooja – Company Highlights

    Headquarters Ahmedabad, Gujarat
    Sector IT services
    Founder Parthiv Patel and Apurv Patel
    Founded 2011
    Legal Name Prayosha Food Services Pvt. Ltd.
    Valuation $35.8 million (2021)
    Revenue $126 million
    Total Funding Raised $8.9 million
    Website www.petpooja.com

    Petpooja – About and How it works?
    Petpooja – Industry details
    Petpooja – Founders
    Petpooja – Startup Story
    Petpooja – Mission and Vision
    Petpooja – Name, Tagline, and Logo
    Petpooja – Business Model
    Petpooja – Revenue Model
    Petpooja – Funding, and Investors
    Petpooja – Growth
    Petpooja – Advertisements and Social Media Campaigns
    Petpooja – Competitors
    Petpooja – Future Plans
    FAQs

    Petpooja – About and How it works?

    The lack of appropriate technology in the F&B sector is what motivated the founders of Petpooja to come up with one of the top restaurant management software to help give them a smooth experience management experience.

    Petpooja is the leading next-generation PoS platform for the F&B industry. The company’s legal name is Prayosha Food Services Pvt. Ltd.

    Its PoS system runs all of its client’s operations smoothly, allowing its customers to focus on other functions to further expand its restaurant business. The company has over 35,000 clients across India, the UAE, and South Africa.

    The PoS system of Petpooja involves a billing system, inventory management system, reporting, customizable menus, CRM, and online ordering.

    Petpooja flatters itself to be present in more than 140 cities not only in India but also in UAE. It has employed more than 750 people across the globe.

    The Petpooja platform processes over 200,000 invoices each day and receives over 50,00,000 API requests every day. The platform is independent of the operating system (Windows, Mac, or Linux) and the browser. Node.JS, Python, PHP, Adobe, MySql, MongoDB, SqlLight, and ReactJS are among the technologies used on the platform.

    Petpooja works with companies and organizations like Dunzo, IIFL,  Bank, PayTM, HDFC NPCI, Zomato, and Swiggy, and by partnering with around 300+ restaurants.

    Petpooja – Industry details

    The worldwide food and beverage industry is predicted to rise at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 9.7% from $5,817.4 billion in 2021 to $6,383.49 billion in 2022. The food and beverage industry is predicted to increase at an 8.7% CAGR to $8,905.5 billion in 2026.

    With this increased rate there could be exponential growth for cloud-based restaurant management platforms like Petpooja, which provide operational needs to any kind of F&B outlet.

    Petpooja – Founders

    Petpooja is founded by Parthiv Patel and Apurv Patel.

    Apurv Patel (left) & Parthiv Patel (right)

    Apurv Patel

    Apurv Patel is the Co-founder and CSO of Petpooja. He has a degree in B.E degree in Electronics & Communication from Sardar Patel University. Before founding Petpooja, Apurv worked in many organizations by engaging himself in different roles. He started out working as an Executive Assistant at Claris Lifescience, then working as a Business Analyst at Elitecore Technologies, etc. Apurv Patel is a people person and always advises to remain ethical and transparent while doing business.

    Parthiv Patel

    Parthiv Patel laid the foundation stone of Petpooja along with his friend Apurv Patel. Prior to beginning the journey of Petpooja, Parthiv has been associated with many companies. To be precise, he began his career as a Senior Project Engineer at Wipro Technologies to then worked as an Associate Vice President at GVFL.

    PetPooja – Startup Story

    The founders of Petpooja – Apurv Patel and Parthiv Patel started Petpooja with the mindset of making the unorganized sector of the F&B industry into a more systematic and methodical sector. The due were school friends, who reunited one single day to end up discussing their love for food in Ahmedabad city. This is one of the biggest reasons before starting Petpooja.

    In the initial days of Petpooja in 2011, it started as a delivery service for corporations and multinational corporations. They served as a go-between for its partner restaurants to deliver huge bulk orders of corporate meals. Within two years, Petpooja made considerable progress by servicing over 200 corporate clients in Ahmedabad and partnering with 300+ eateries.

    During the delivery process, the duo realized that they had to put a lot of effort to carry out the process, which involved orders, constant follow-ups, inventory and orders and bills, and a lot more other things. Keeping up with the pace of manually taking orders is what pushed the founders to take appropriate technological help. They sought to automate the monotonous and repetitive processes, giving the restaurant owner more time to focus on customer care and business success.

    After pitching the idea of embracing Petpooja Point-of-Sale (PoS) software, the company raised its funds and achieved a positive outcome. It grew from a two-member team to over 200 employees in 2019. Gradually, the company upgraded its software by adding features like Kiosk, AI-enabled software, and FoodBot, which is a Robot that does the serving chores of a waiter in a restaurant.

    PetPooja – Mission and Vision

    The mission of Petpooja says, “Our mission is to be the go-to Operating System for all F&B retail across the world”

    The company relies on four philosophical visions:

    • Pricing
    • Simplicity
    • Innovation
    • Support

    Petpooja’s logo is the company’s name itself.

    PetPooja – Business Model

    The business model of Petpooja can be said to have a B2B2C model. Since Petpooja provides restaurant management software solutions to a majority of restaurant business owners, it offers a complete product or service transaction process. The business model of the company allows mutually beneficial service or product delivery channels through its PoS system.

    Petpooja operates its business by offering PoS systems that have a complete system for an online operation that eases the operations of many restaurant owners. The services include –

    • Billing system – Deskstop billing software allows the customers to manage high-order bills in a smooth manner. The software is operational on any device, be it a laptop, desktop, tabs, or any touchscreen electronic device.
    • Inventory Management Software – This software by Petpooja allows customers to manage their entire restaurant stock such as raw materials to even monitor semi-prepared items on the kitchen module system. Petpooja inventory app gives its clients the liberty to keep their stock list updated in a matter of minutes and automatically sync all the data to Petpooja’s cloud.
    • Reporting – Whether it is tax, an email report, a cancellation report, or other bill reports are all stored under the simplified reporting dashboard to give its customers a glance at important reports in one place.
    • Menu Card Dashboard – Petpooja also gives the liberty to its clients to add their restaurant menus. The feature also allows them to customize as per their food items’ availability. In addition to this, it also has special notes for the restaurant owner’s customers to allow them to give special instructions.
    • CRM – This service by Petpooja allows its clients to engage and track their loyal customers to help build healthy relationships. Petpooja’s Feedback Management System lets its clients collect feedback and other suggestions from their customers either through SMS links, QR codes, or using tablets or mobile phones.
    • Online order integration – The PoS of Petpooja offers seamless online order management. Companies like Zomato, Swiggy, and Amazon use Petpooja’s online order management system.

    Apart from offering this above-mentioned software, Petpooja also gives the option to add features to its client’s existing PoS system. The Petpooja App marketplace further optimizes its clients’ PoS system with special apps and other services.

    Besides, Petpooja has other tech products like Waiter Calling Device, Captain App, and Tvito: the marketing app.

    Petpooja PoS system is widely being used by F&B outlets like Fine Dine, Cloud Kitchens, Bakery, Bar, Canteens, Food courts, Pizza shops, Cafes, and other large chains.

    PetPooja – Revenue Model

    After relaunching with the PoS system, Petpooja gained a good amount of revenue. With a new approach to the business model, Petpooja slowly picked up the race and built its business into a more scalable one. The initial years for Petpooja were tough but now the company has made a total revenue of $126 million.

    The two streams from which Petpooja generates its income are:

    • Petpooja App Marketplace by offering add-on features and other integrations.
    • Through online and credit card transactions.

    PetPooja – Funding, and Investors

    Petpooja has received $8.9 million in investment over three rounds. Their most recent funding came from a Series B round on November 15, 2021. The company is supported by five investors. The most recent investors are GVFL and Mayur Desai.

    Date Funding round Lead Investors Funds raised
    November 15, 2021 SERIES B Aroa Ventures $4.5 million
    February 10, 2020 SERIES A Udaan $140 million
    November 16, 2019 SEED Round Trustroots $2.4 million

    PetPooja – Growth

    The growth of Petpooja can be said to be commendable as the company today works closely with big companies like Havmor, Jumboking, Apsara, TGIF, The Beer Cafe, Thalappakatti, and many more. From starting as a delivery service to now climbing to offering innovative software services to various businesses, Petpooja has come a long way.

    Presently, the company has a strong and expanding family of more than 800 people, and it has begun scaling its operations overseas as well. The $4.5 million Series-B fundraising recently will help the company to pursue its ambition to disrupt the restaurant-tech enterprise and enhance the efficiency of all eateries and F&B models.

    During the pandemic, Petpooja came up with unique features to help many businesses, which were shut down due to lockdown in 2020. The company came up with ideas to help businesses recover from the pandemic and cope with losses in a more useful way. It launched robust features such as Scan-Order-Pay, Voice-ordering Kiosk, Petpooja Restaurant Analytics Insights, SMS service, Online Order Reconciliation, Suppliers Hub, etc.

    PetPooja – Advertisements and Social Media Campaigns

    Petpooja has its own App called Tvito, which is a marketing app designed for restaurant owners to help them create social-media-worthy pictures. The mobile app – Tvito offers 50,000+ designs, 20+ cuisines, and vast options for content creation to promote any restaurant business.

    To promote the launch of Tvito, Petpooja posted a video showcasing the various features of Tvito on its YouTube Channel.

    PetPooja – Competitors

    Some of the competitors of Petpooja are:

    • Repeat App
    • myHQ
    • FoodDocs
    • POSist
    • SlickPOS
    • Toast
    • Urban Piper
    • Vend POS
    • LimeTray Restuarant POS
    • GloriaFood

    PetPooja – Future Plans

    Petpooja’s main aim is to become the country’s one-stop solution for an operating system for all F&B outlets across the world. The company’s innovative and smart products and services have made them one of the leading PoS software companies in the country today.

    FAQs

    When was Petpooja founded?

    PetPooja was founded in 2011.

    Who is the founder of Petpooja?

    The founder of PetPooja is Parthiv Patel.

    Where is the headquarters of Petpooja?

    PetPooja is headquartered in Ahmedabad, Gujrat.

    Does Petpooja serve only in India?

    No, the services of PetPooja are available in UAE & South Africa as well.

  • Things to Know Before Starting up in the Food Industry

    This article is contributed by Megha Rawal, Founder of Mezmo Candy.

    The present-day food industry is the result of food startups and companies which popped up in the ’90s. Quite a few multinational companies started around the same time which is now a famous brand and go-to option for people of all age groups alike across the globe. What is it that made them famous? What is it that we as a better technologically equipped generation are not able to understand? What was the success mantra which is still working for them?

    There’s one answer to all these questions. What separated the MNCs from the startups is that they provided cost-efficient solutions and constantly evolved/improvised their products with the changing needs and mindset of the 21st-century consumer. This is exactly what made them a popular household name and helped them flourish in domestic and international markets. Venturing into a food industry is always a good idea because this business will never be saturated. We all love food and we need to eat to survive.

    What you are offering to your customers is what makes the difference for your brand. If you are providing a specific food item, you will be catering to a niche audience, if you have general food products, your quality, quantity, and price factor come into the picture to decide the success graph. Generally speaking, niche products are less price-sensitive than general mass-market products.

    You need a passion for food and hospitality when you decide to venture into this sector. Along with this, marketing is the tool you have to exfoliate to your advantage. There are numerous things that set you apart from your competitors, how well you leverage them for your benefit is what decides the success or failure of your brand.

    Speaking about the same, Megha Rawal, founder of Mezmo Candy says, “First and foremost, make a business plan. Weighing out the pros and cons of entering a new business is the vital step. Give ample thought to your customer value proposition (CVP). What are the profit areas and what can be risky, what will connect with the audience, and what will face hesitant acceptance, how much time will the licensing and paperwork take, literally everything has to go in the plan along with a strong backup plan. Having another plan is smart work as you are ready with options if the first one doesn’t work out. Calculate the timeframe for the return on your investment and proceed accordingly”.

    Market research is very important, especially if your product is niche. For B2C products, conduct a survey over a minimum of 150 people belonging to mixed groups. Depending on the result of the survey your CVP may need modifications.

    Begin trials of your product, rope in open-minded chefs and food technologists who are willing to experiment and give life to your product. Tasting sessions can commence with your friends, family, and connoisseurs of taste. You will have to go through numerous rounds of trials till you perfect your products. Lock in the items which you think will definitely work. They are called safe bets as it appeals to one and all. Add a few items which will please a selected crowd and a few options for the people who love trying something new. If you want to be in the D2C space, having a good shelf life is very important.

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    It’s best to keep your costs low and aim for a lean start-up. Moving on, creating your brand positioning and story is very important. So outsource it to the best because it is very important to make a powerful first impression of your product.   Your packaging has to be very attractive to pull prospective clients towards trying your product. Market it the right way and see how the word spreads.

    With a bad experience, you not only lose one customer, but a series of them as word of mouth creates a huge impact. Their experience will be shared with their friends and just like that, you will lose out on a chunk of potential customers.

    Knowing your competition is something you have to do before you even start contemplating any other possibilities. Identifying your few key strengths and reiterating those will create a brand recall. What you can do better than your peers’ matters when you are calculating the success rate. What is profitable for them might not necessarily be profitable for you and the determination of the same is a part of being an entrepreneur.

    Also Read: Scaling Indian Organic & Ayurvedic brands – Challenges & Solution

    No one has had it easy and neither will you. The time will test you, demand a lot more than you could ever imagine you are capable of, take you to a point where you would feel completely saturated and feel like giving up, but in that exact moment, if you manage to keep your calm and be level-headed and pivot,  that’s the battle half won. Passion and perseverance are two things that need to be in abundance in an entrepreneur’s life. Consistency, concentration, and cooperation are the 3Cs of success that you will have to embrace. The key is to manage your lows and bounce back to keep that fire burning inside you. Going might get tough, and the fire will mellow down, but don’t forget that embers are enough to ignite a fire again.

  • Why are people excited for Zomato IPO when it’s in loss?

    The Initial Public Offering of Zomato is the much awaited IPO of 2021. It is considered to be one of the largest IPO’s of 2021. The company on 28 April 2021 has finally filed the draft papers with the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI). Let’s look at why there is so much excitement in the market for the issue of Zomato’s shares even though they are a loss making company.

    Zomato IPO
    Losses of Zomato
    Zomato Warns losses to continue
    Bad Cash Flows
    IIFL Securities
    Motilal Oswal Financial Services
    Kotak AMC
    FAQ

    Zomato IPO

    Zomato has been one of the biggest successful startups in India in the last decade along with Flipkart, Byju’s and its rival startup Swiggy. The Initial Public Offering of Zomato is expected to increase the value of the company.

    The dealers in the unofficial or grey market who trades in unlisted shares said that the valuation of the company could be around INR 53,000 crores. The expected valuation of Zomato will make it larger than one-third of the companies that are listed on the index of Nifty 50.

    On July 8, 2021, Zomato is one week away from launching its debut IPO. The company has already filed its red herring prospectus with the Bombay Stock Exchange, and in the same, Zomato has also revealed some much-awaited details of its upcoming IPO.

    According to the prospectus, the shares that Zomato would offer would be priced between Rs 72-76 each, which would make the whole issue worth between Rs 9,357 – 11,198 crores. The food delivery giant would issue its shares for a period between July 14 – 16, 2021. Furthermore, as per the reports, there will be a total of 1,30,20,83,333 equity shares of face value Re 1 each on offer for bids.

    Zomato had initially disclosed that the total amount of its IPO would be Rs 7,500 crores last month. However, the company eventually had to increase the total size of the issue due to rising demands from the investors. The portion of the IPO, as offered to the retail investors, has been limited to 10% of the total size of the issue. This is because the brand has not achieved profitability yet.

    Losses of Zomato

    The difference between Zomato and the other companies listed on the Nifty50 index is that they are profit making companies for several years or at least from the last decade. Whereas Zomato is recording losses continuously for the past 4 years.

    For the last nine month period which ended in December 2020, the company has reported a net loss of INR 682 crores and INR 2,385 crores for the year 2019-2020, INR 1,010 crores for the year 2018-19 and INR 107 crore for the year 2017-18.

    In the draft red herring prospectus, which was submitted to the Securities and Exchange Board of India the company has mentioned that they have a history of net losses and are expecting an increase in the expenses in the future.

    Prior to the launch of its debut IPO, Zomato is spending Rs 1.3 to earn a single rupee of operating revenue in FY21, which has improved from Rs 1.92 that the company had to spend in FY20.

    Furthermore, the company has also witnessed an improvement of around 66% in terms of the total losses. Zomato suffered an annual loss of Rs 2385.6 crore in FY20, which came down to be Rs 816.4 crore in FY21. The company, which is going live with its IPO next week, still has outstanding losses worth Rs 5,600.3 crore at the end of FY21  

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    Zomato Warns losses to continue

    Zomato has warned the investors that the company expects the expenses to increase in the future and their losses to continue for a period of time. The company said that from the significant investments it would require some time to grow the business.

    The company has plans to pump in a lot of money into the marketing, advertising and promotion. They also have plans to expand its services to new markets in India and develop its platform in addition to expanding its delivery partner network.

    The company said that these efforts would be costlier than they expect and added on saying that it may not result in the increase in revenue or growth of the business. The company said that the increase in revenue and the investments received will be spent on other expenses. This would prevent the company from increasing or maintaining its profitability at a consistent level or a positive cash flow.

    Zomato Revenue Growth
    Zomato Revenue Growth

    Bad Cash Flows

    Zomato has not just struggled in generating profit but has a bad track record of generating cash flows from its operations. The cash outflow of Zomato from operations is INR 269 crore in the year ended in December 2020.

    The company has reported negative cash flow in the past 3 financial years. Most of the negative cash flows are due to the high promotion and advertising expenses of the company to attract new customers to scale up their operations on the platform.

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    IIFL Securities

    The brokerage firm IIFL Securities said in a report that it expects Zomato to earn an operating profit in the current financial year due to the increase in the demand of delivery business because of the coronavirus pandemic.

    IIFL securities have an expectation that Zomato will increase its net revenues at a growth of 48 % on a yearly basis for the next 5 years. They expect the fixed costs to grow at a rate of 27 % on a yearly basis which would provide an improvement in the operating margin for the next decade.

    Motilal Oswal Financial Services

    Raamdeo Agarwal who is the chairman and co-founder of Motilal Oswal Financial Services has said that by giving valuations one wouldn’t look for what the company has earned in the past 5 years but will be looking at what the company will earn in the next 25 years.

    Kotak AMC

    Anshul Saigal who is the head of portfolio management services at Kotak AMC has said that it is confusing for investors, but he wants the investors to ask themselves a question before investing that is if the company stopped growing today will its business model earn profits. He added that the answer to this question is the heart of valuing a tech company.

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    FAQ

    Is Zomato listed in stock market?

    Zomato is planning to go public in 2021.

    Who is the CEO of Zomato?

    Deepinder Goyal is the CEO of Zomato.

    Is Zomato an Indian company?

    Zomato, is one of India’s largest food delivery company.

    Conclusion

    Zomato’s IPO will be more like a leap of faith for the Indian investors. The traditional way of valuing a business cannot be used by the Indian investors when it comes to valuing a business model like Zomato.

  • What are the Latest Technology Trends in India?

    In the past few years, India has become a major attraction for latest technological advancements. Consumers for almost all sorts of technological niches have seen a raise in recent times. This makes it extremely important to understand the latest technology trends which are presently going on in the country. Let’s see what all technologies are being adored by our fellow country mates.  

    latest Trending Technologies

    App Development

    Even before the WhiteHatJr. coding campaign rolled out, app development had been gaining heat. The craze and enthusiasm for developing apps and coding had been increasing with the popularity of the same since their inception. App development offers a great scope and for the ones who have the right mix of skill along with vision, it opens up a completely new world. App development is hence, the next big thing or rather the contemporary colossal phenomenon in the technology sector.

    Web Development

    Web Development
    Web Development

    Another notable field wherein the youth and the tech savvy generation of our motherland are engaging in is Web Development. Web Development is not limited to designing website content but involves many other aspects. One gets to integrate mobile apps with the web interfaces, develop content and work with loads of software, the possibilities are endless. It is no surprise that Web Development is one of the technological trends which has the technology sector going gaga.

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    Robotics

    Robotics
    Robotics

    The development of Robotics has rather been uncanny in many ways. It started off as a western influence and soon became a phenomenon. Though there might be many individuals who’d argue the origins of robotics, one thing which stands out is India’s rise in the robotics sector. Colleges are encouraging students to take robotics and even have introduced various courses for the same. The advancements and the interest looks to make robotics an integral part of the Indian technology sector soon.

    Gaming

    It is no surprise that gaming is one of the technological trends which has taken center stage in the technological sector of the country. The scope for gaming has increased by a huge margin in the last half a decade or so. Especially with so many streamers and streaming platforms gaining immense popularity over the course of the last few years, the inclination towards gaming has globally gone up. Many Indian gamers, who have risen to fame have also played a significant role in popularizing Gaming.

    Gaming is not limited to a specific platform and one can find a huge number of platforms which have and are being explored by many. The thrill and the perks associated with gaming make it all the more enthralling. Indian game developers are also gaining recognition at a global level. The gaming sector seems promising and is sure to grow in the coming times.

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    Cyber Security

    Cyber Security
    Cyber Security

    The extensive use of any entity brings with it the need to monitor the usage. The same holds true in the case of technology. Almost all of the country’s population is connected to the internet some way or the other, this makes it extremely important to monitor the miscreants lurking online.

    The most popular trend amongst Cyber Security is Blockchain Technology. Its highly secure and has a constant need for evolution. This gives Blockchain particularly a wider scope than other aspects of Cyber Security. Nevertheless, Cyber Security is a necessity which can be converted into a great opportunity rather is being converted into one.

    Artificial Intelligence (AI)

    Artificial Intelligence has been an entity of the future all of humanity is striving to make a contemporary one. India isn’t far behind in the bid to develop newer and groundbreaking technologies to bring the future closer. The extensive development of Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality software is attracting the attention of global tycoons towards the country. Though gradually but steadily, A.I. in the country is becoming a force to reckon with.

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    Crypto Currency

    Crypto Currency
    Crypto Currency

    The fact that Crypto currency is legally not accepted in and around the country makes its appearance in this list slightly astonishing. There are two major factors which have made Crypto currency a popular technological trend in India. The first being the fact that crypto currency (most notably BitCoin) has become the real deal in the last few years, considering the global stocks and markets. The second factor is simply because it is banned in the country, making it more intriguing for individuals to indulge and understand the technical aspects of the same.

    Irrespective of the present scenarios, the future of crypto currency looks bright in the country. The economic reforms should give way to crypto currency being welcomed with open arms soon.

    Food Tech

    One thing which has been constantly in trend in the country has been the foodtech industry. A huge number of foodtech startups have emerged and even taken centre stage in the past few years. There have been many entrepreneurs who have invested and many who are still investing in foodtech in the country. The fact that there have been a huge number of aspirants who are working on these lines adds to the field even more.

    The country’s love for food and the influence of technology make it a great place for Foodtech to bloom. This is more than enough reason for Foodtech being a technological trend to look out for in the coming times.

    Conclusion

    There have been a number of Technologies which are in trend at the moment, but the fact that the technology sector is dynamic can not be emphasized enough. Having said that, the technologies which have been talked off seem way more than short term trends and are sure to strengthen their position in coming times. The more the advancements, the better the sector will get and the more trends we’ll have in the future.

    FAQs

    Technology trend awareness as a skill refers to being mindful of the technology that is recently becoming popular and is readily accepted in the market or industry.

    Latest Trending Technology

    • App Development
    • Web Development
    • Robotics
    • Gaming
    • Cyber Security
    • Artificial Intelligence(AI)
    • Crypto Currency
    • Food Tech

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  • Spoonshot—Leveraging Artificial Intelligence To Predict Food Trends

    Company Profile is an initiative by StartupTalky to publish verified information on different startups and organizations. The content in this post has been approved by the organization it is based on.

    Artificial Intelligence is now penetrating almost every existing domain. Finance, healthcare, education, transportation and many sectors  are witnessing active use of AI. This intelligence is now being used for an upcoming niche: prediction of consumer tastes and food trends. Spoonshot, a startup based in Bangalore, is using AI to help businesses operating in the food and beverages sector serve their customers better by providing useful insights on future food trends and guest intelligence.

    Spoonshot’s AI-powered tool is saving FMCG companies time and money while enabling them to become trendsetters. StartupTalky interviewed Spoonshot CEO Kishan Vasani to understand more about the startup.

    Spoonshot – Company Highlights

    Startup Name Spoonshot
    Headquarter Bangalore
    Founders Kishan Vasani and Sai Sreenivas Kodur
    Sector FMCG
    Founded December, 2015
    Website www.spoonshot.com
    Parent Organization Spoonshot.com

    Spoonshot – About
    Spoonshot – Vision & Mission
    Spoonshot – Target Market
    Spoonshot – Founders & Team
    Spoonshot – How It Started
    Spoonshot – Ideation, Designing, & Prototyping Of The Product
    Spoonshot – Product/Service
    Spoonshot – How It Works
    Spoonshot – Work Culture
    Spoonshot – Name, Tagline, & Logo
    Spoonshot – Business Model & Revenue Model
    Spoonshot – User Acquisition
    Spoonshot – Startup Challenges
    Spoonshot – Funding & Investors
    Spoonshot – Advisors & Mentors
    Spoonshot – Acquisitions & Mergers
    Spoonshot – Future Plans
    Spoonshot – FAQ’s
    Spoonshot – Conclusion

    Spoonshot – About

    Spoonshot is a food AI company that is raising the bar for insight-led innovation. It believes in exploration as the catalyst behind the novel, successful products and uses it as the very fuel to help food and beverage companies shape the future and bring about new trends.  

    Spoonshot equips the food and beverage industry with unprecedented foresight of emerging market needs. By transforming long-tail, open information from diverse and authentic sources, Spoonshot’s proprietary food science infused algorithms connect disparate data sets, to deliver personalized insights, predict trends, and identify novel opportunities. Today, Spoonshot is supporting the world’s best-known brands in meeting the future needs of their customers.

    Spoonshot – Vision & Mission

    Spoonshot is on a mission to replicate human cognition in the domain of food. We humans have developed special skill sets—chef, nutritionist, doctor, foodie, scientist, psychologist, etc. Spoonshot’s core technology which is referred to as #foodbrain, is designed to adopt relevant components from each of these skill sets.

    Consumer tastes are influenced by many factors. Geography, purchasing power, external influence, mood, etc. are important determiners of  one’s taste buds. At Spoonshot, every variable that is likely to affect consumer taste is included to enable #foodbrain deliver the highest level of accuracy in prediction. This foresightedness is then used by the food and beverage companies while developing and rolling out products and services.

    “Today incrementalism is the go-to-strategy for most FMCG companies that want to create new products or flavors. And the sad reality is while 58% of R&D spending is directed at incremental innovations, only 14% is used for breakthrough or disruptive innovations. Under this scenario, Spoonshot  is working towards bringing about true innovation in the food industry” says Spoonshot CEO Kishan Vasnai  explaining how Spoonshot is making a difference.

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    Spoonshot – Target Market

    Spoonshot’s target industry is FMCG, where sales is forecasted to top $720 billion by 2020. Spoonshot’s target customers are large FMCG companies in North America.

    Spoonshot – Founders and Team

    Kishan Vasani and Sai Sreenivas Kodur are the founders of Spoonshot.

    Kishan Vasani & Sai Sreenivas Kodur | Co-Founders. Spoonshot

    Kishan Vasnai is the CEO of Spoonshot. He has 10+ years  of experience in the startup segment and 7+ years of experience in food tech domain. Kishan founded a digital marketing agency named ‘U Want Media’ in 2006, which he exited in 2011. Kishan is the ex COO of ‘Just Eat’ (India) and also worked as the head of international marketing in ‘Just Eat’. Besides, Kishan co-founded ‘One Cause’, a UK based NGO that promotes education as the solution to poverty

    Sai Sreenivas Kodur is the co-Founder & CTO of Spoonshot. Sai, who is a computer science graduate from IIT Madras,  has 5+ years of experience in the tech sector. He worked as a software engineer in Myntra, Zomato, and Kiwi, Inc. before joining Spoonshot.

    Kishan built the core team using LinkedIn, and came in contact with Sai through LinkedIn’s platform.

    When I first started looking for a technical partner, I quickly realized that I was not interviewing them, but that good candidates were really interviewing me, asking all sorts of difficult questions about my experience and the business model. I was specifically looking for someone with a computer science background, essentially a real geek, and while they didn’t need to have food tech experience, it was a great bonus. But the most important trait was that I needed to find someone that I could get along with, someone I could have a beer with. With Sai, I was lucky to get all of the above – Kishan

    When Kishan met Sai, the latter was at Myntra in a well-paid job. Kishan knew he would have to  work hard to on-board Sai. The duo met several times and discussed the industry and opportunity for hours before the decision to work together was established. Alignment on the opportunities in the food tech segment was relatively straightforward given that both Sai and Kishan had background in this domain. Also, Sai had a similar startup idea but didn’t pursue it. Finally, Sai and Kishan came together to start Spoonshot. Kishan even asked one of his friend, the CTO of a company, to interview Sai for ensuring his technical prowess.

    Spoonshot – How It Started

    Spoonshot founder Kishan Vasani’s, personal experience with food was instrumental in Spoonshot’s launch.

    During his stint at Just Eat Group in London (2011-2013),  Kishan stumbled upon several opportunities that interested him (like white-label apps for restaurants). Kishan noticed that the actual dining experience didn’t necessarily match the restaurant ratings and reviews available.

    One of my favorite dishes served by a restaurant in Bangalore has a restaurant rating of 3.1. Conversely, I’ve been to several highly rated restaurants (4.0+) and thought the food was average at best.

    With reviews and ratings being almost useless, Kishan wanted to find something that would give consumers more accurate insight on their dining/ordering experience.

    Initially, Kishan thought of dish rating as a good way to solve the problem because of its relevance and granularity as a data point. But further research highlighted that taste is subjective and varies greatly from person to person. A more innovative approach was required.

    “It wasn’t until 2015 after I had left Just Eat and started working at a London fintech startup called Osper, that I decided to jump off the entrepreneurial cliff. At Osper, I was working closely with the Founder & CEO, Alick Varma. Seeing him build his dream business with such passion and drive essentially drove me to leave and start my venture. ”

    Kishan and Sai did extensive research about the FMCG industry for almost 9 months. They met over 130 industry professionals to get a clear understanding about the problems and opportunities in the Food and Beverage industry before starting Spoonshot. Spoonshot initially started as a  B2C company that was building a personalized food discovery app for the Indian market. Spoonshot was then known as ‘Dishq'(a combination of dish and ishq, the hindi word for love). Dishq focused on shifting the notion of food ordering away from ratings and reviews to more visual and emotionally driven decision-making.

    Later, the company pivoted to become  a B2B company and re-branded itself as Spoonshot.

    Given that  Sai and I both previously worked in the food/restaurant tech, we made certain product and customer assumptions based upon our knowledge. In hindsight, we should have completed more thorough market research as this would have saved us a lot of time and pain – Kishan

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    Spoonshot – Ideation, Designing, & Prototyping Of The Product

    Spoonshot tested its very first insights through a Hackathon with Ferrero (the manufacturer of Nutella). Spoonshot received a positive response which gave the team confidence and conviction to further explore this opportunity.

    After 3 months of deep industry research in the US (Spoonshot’s target market), Spoonshot built its very first insights prototype for a US-based food startup called Milkful during the Techstars Farm To Fork Accelerator.

    Milkful’s product that comprises health snack bars has been created for a very specific audience. They wanted to understand new ingredient combinations that would meet their consumer’s needs. Once again, we received good feedback. This allowed us to iterate our solution further.

    The next version was used to deliver insights to a global ingredient giant. This project was far more complicated with high stakes. After 3 months of intensive engagement, Spoonshot delivered its insights and the client was satisfied with the results. This gave the Spoonshot team the conviction and validation to develop a full-fledged platform.  

    Spoonshot – Product/Service

    Spoonshot has built an AI-powered insights platform infused with food science to assist FMCG brands uncover hidden product opportunities and accelerate incremental revenue by leveraging Spoonshot’s unique insights.

    The platform is an innovation and trends research tool. It is designed to be the creative spark for product development by encouraging exploration, generating inspiration, a place for ideation. Following are some major components of the Spoonshot platform:

    (1) Ingredient Networks: A way to uncover emerging and novel ingredient combinations.

    (2) Startups Explorer: Details the innovation and product development of new food and beverage enterprises.

    (3) Trend Trek: A place to discover the latest food ingenuity around the world.

    Spoonshot has designed the platform such that users need not ask it questions, but are continually given answers or insights personalized to the user’s needs.

    The increasingly dynamic consumer landscape in the age of digital means that it is harder than ever before to track customer needs and tastes. There’s simply too much data and too many opinions. Quite frankly, it can be overwhelming. Also, legacy research and insights providers over-rely on lagging indicators and archaic methodologies, which lead to stale ideas. To add insult to injury, these agencies sell the same data to you and your competitors, so finding an edge is next to impossible.

    Spoonshot’s bleeding edge technology leverages the power of AI, food science, and large, diverse data sets, to give the companies a tool specifically for  early-stage product innovation, ideation, and inspiration.

    We want the consumers to have better, more relevant product choices, and not be overwhelmed by the current situation of over choice.

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    Spoonshot – How It Works

    Spoonshot uses domain knowledge (food science) as a means to contextualize and extrapolate insights based upon the changes it sees in its data pipelines.

    Food science refers to Computational Gastronomy and Nutrition Science.

    Computational Gastronomy refers to applying data science techniques to the chemistry of food. Spoonshot extends this by collecting data related to flavor, sensory and texture. Nutrition Science refers to the break up of nutrition in different items. Spoonshot also enriches this with data on how a style of cooking influences nutritional value.

    The company builds several types of ingredient networks using this data. These ingredient networks define how the ingredients are inter-related (e.g. ingredients could be similar in taste, smell, nutrition, substitution, texture, etc). This serves as a fixed knowledge base which acts as the backbone to build products.

    Spoonshot has built a trend data store which tracks food related data along with two key dimensions:

    1. Time.
    2. Geo-location.

    This gives the company information on which ingredients are trending and in which locations.

    Spoonshot – Work Culture

    Spoonshot currently has 22 employees comprising data scientists, food scientists, and developers with the common love for eating.

    We have a very friendly, no-hierarchy work culture and are as transparent about our decisions and plans with the team. We have a potluck once a month, team lunches, and learning sessions so that there is a good mix of fun and learning – Kishan says commenting on Spoonshot’s work culture.

    Spoonshot’s hiring funda is simple: Hire foodies with a problem-solving mindset.

    The five values below are the guiding stars for the Spoonshot team:

    • First-principles: Don’t make assumptions, but be curious and inquisitive.
    • Be bold: Don’t be afraid to think big and execute bigger and bring your personality to the problem.
    • Show passion: Commit wholeheartedly and with real belief.
    • Drive excellence: Lead by example, go the extra mile, and accept/deliver nothing less than great.
    • Give first: Be helpful, kind, and open.

    Spoonshot Logo

    The name Spoonshot has been derived from ‘moonshot thinking’.

    We are a great believer of the ‘moonshot thinking’ – a combination of a huge problem, a radical solution to that problem and the breakthrough technology that just might make that solution possible. Our core technology is focused on enabling FMCG companies to stay ahead of trends. It’s almost like a crystal ball for early-stage product innovation, ideation, and inspiration – Kishan explains

    Spoonshot logo represents the spoon for the F&B and moonshot thinking. The tagline is ‘Be The Trendsetter’, and the company did an extensive marketing exercise to derive at this motto.

    Spoonshot – Business Model & Revenue Model

    Spoonshot is a SaaS platform and charge an annual access fee which includes a number of licenses/seats.

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    Spoonshot – User Acquisition

    Spoonshot got accepted in the Techstars Farm To Fork Accelerator in the summer of 2018. The power and reach of their network was incredible and changed the trajectory of the business. Spoonshot was able to connect to many of its customers through this channel. The second major channel for customer acquisition was through a leading industry event where Spoonshot presented a demo of its platform on stage. Within 24 hours of the presentation, the company had 30 new B2B customers on-board.

    Spoonshot – Startup Challenges

    Finding product-market fit in the FMCG industry was a major challenge. The next major challenge was and continues to be tech recruitment.

    Bangalore has many developers but finding good ones, with the values aligned to our business, with reasonable salary expectations is very difficult. We have tried many things to improve our recruitment process and still I don’t believe we have a winning formula. Perhaps the most pertinent point is that whether you are hiring or not, recruitment should never stop.

    Kishan shares the following few tips that he keeps in mind while hiring.

    • Do not Hire fast: There’s the risk of bringing in people who are either not technically sound or culturally right.
    • Do not hire someone who is not a culture fit.
    • Do not Hire too slowly: Too many rounds means you can lose candidates to other companies.
    • Be cautious while using an agency: We’ve used some of the ‘best’ agencies in Bangalore and it did not led to a new hire.
    • Think before hiring interns: The quality is mixed but you get great executional bandwidth. Great interns have been hired as full-timers. Interns even after joining full-time may want to pursue further studies. Also, they do not have any other work experience to benchmark against; this can be both good and bad.  

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    Spoonshot – Funding & Investors

    Spoonshot has raised a total funding of $1.712 Million in 4 rounds till date. Below are Spoonshot funding details-

    Funding Date Funding Stage Funding Amount Investor
    Early 2017 Angel Funding $37k HNI
    2017 Accelerator $120k Zeroth.AI
    2018 Pre-seed $555k Techstars, Arts Alliance & HNIs
    2020 Seed Round $1 Million SRI Capital

    The recent funding round on September 2020 was led by SRI Capital. This financing will be used to fuel the Spoonshot’s growth plan and for further investment in its Proprietary technology and team.

    Spoonshot – Advisors & Mentors

    Spoonshot has current and former executives at some of the industry’s leading US organizations including Cargill, Ecolab, McDonald’s, Conagra, General Mills, and the National Restaurant Association as its advisors.

    Spoonshot – Acquisitions & Mergers

    Spoonshot acquired Brisky, a restaurant analytics startup in 2018. Brisky provides restaurants and bars with customer satisfaction intelligence, helps them understand their customers needs better, and quickly highlights the areas that need attention.

    Spoonshot – Future Plans

    Till September 2019, Spoonshot was in the beta stage, and even then it  had over 40 companies, that includes over 15 billion dollar companies, testing its FMCG trends platform. The platform was publicly launched on 1st October 2019.

    In 2020, Spoonshot is planning to scale the business in the following ways:

    • Launch new features (as demanded by its customers).
    • The company is currently focusing on North America, and has plans to launch new markets (locations being evaluated include UK, Japan and China).
    • Launch a version of the platform designed for large restaurant operators.

    Sharing his vision, Spoonshot CEO Kishan Vasani said, “We believe our technology (#foodbrain) and the platform will become the de facto choice for the food industry, across FMCG and restaurant/food services, for being on-trend and providing customers with the choices they need and want”

    Spoonshot – FAQ’s

    Who are the Founders of Spoonshot?

    Kishan Vasani and Sai Sreenivas Kodur are the Founders of Spoonshot.

    What is Spoonshot?

    Spoonshot’s technology leverages food science and artificial intelligence to predict consumer tastes and food trends. It’s AI-powered tool is saving FMCG companies time and money while enabling them to become trendsetters

    How much funding was raised by Spoonshot?

    As revealed by the founders, Spoonshot has raised a total funding of $1.712 Million in 4 rounds till date. The recent funding round on September 2020 was led by SRI Capital for $1 Million.

    Who is the CEO of Spoonshot?

    Kishan Vasnai is the CEO of Spoonshot.

    Spoonshot – Conclusion

    Spoonshot delivers food & beverage innovation intelligence by leveraging AI and food science. Our insights reveal the future of food through a deep understanding of emerging and evolving consumer and market needs, enabling us to accurately predict trends and uncover innovation opportunities.

    58% of R&D spending is directed at incremental innovation, while only 14% is used for breakthrough or disruptive innovations.

    While incrementalism is fuelling the revenues of companies today, they have forgotten to look at how they can create revenues for the day after tomorrow. Consumer panels and surveys are square pegs in a world increasingly made of round holes. Incremental gains are a band-aid for a bullet wound.

    At Spoonshot, we believe that exploration is the catalyst for novel and successful food innovation, the very fuel to help you shape the future, to set the trend. We examine the root cause, start at the very beginning, and build from first principles. We adopt the mindset of our inner inquisitive child, always learning, never biased, always curious, never fearful. We believe that the best way to predict the future is to invent it. #bethetrendsetter

    That’s ‘Spoonshot thinking’.

    You can find out more about our thoughts and research on our YouTube channel.

  • How Swiggy is Transforming Delivery Service With the Help of AI

    Swiggy was founded in the year 2014. It is currently India’s largest delivery and online food ordering platform. It is operating in 100 different cities in the country. Swiggy has been using AI to improve its orders and delivery. Let’s look at the steps taken by the company to use AI for the smooth delivery of its products.

    AI usage for smooth deliveries
    Customers
    Delivery Executives
    Restaurants
    Time and Space
    AI Strategy
    FAQ

    Swiggy Using AI for Smooth Deliveries

    Swiggy has used AI to grow its order value by over 200%. The company said that the real challenge they faced was real-time decisions or optimizing their products. They said that, when the customers are deciding what to order, the delivery executives keep moving around and restaurants get busy with their customers and orders. Finding a balance between these three was the real challenge faced by them.

    Customer Sattisfaction

    The company stated that first promise they would maintain is that they will deliver the products within the given time period. They have built an AI system, where the customers will be able to see what they would prefer, at what time, etc. in the company’s platform. It is designed using AI which makes it easier for the customers to choose their order.

    The platform is built in a way where it would understand the language used to refer to the same item in different names. For example- In India chicken is addressed using different names in different languages and AI helps in making the platform understand that all these different names means the same dish.

    Swiggy’s Delivery Executives

    The location of the delivery executives is tracked by the company on a real-time basis. They get to know whether the delivery executive is available to fulfill the order or not using the AI system. This will help the company in confirming the order given by the customers.

    The company also needs to understand, whether the executive is a new person or an experienced person which is done through an automation Process.

    The delivery executives will have to mark arrived, when they reach a restaurant for picking up the order. The company uses live GPS tracking so that they don’t click arrived even before reaching the restaurant. This helps the company to know that they are physically present in the restaurant.

    Valuation of Swiggy ($m)
    Valuation of Swiggy ($m)

    Swiggy’s AI Solution for Restaurants

    In the same way, restaurants will also face similar challenges. It would take different time periods to prepare different dishes. Some may take 20 minutes while others may take up to 30 minutes to prepare. The company has built systems to take into account how much time would it require to prepare the dishes ordered by the customers.

    Another area where the company concentrates is on food quality. Sometimes the customer would receive a different dish from the one they would have ordered. The company has built a box that has a camera in it, which will take pictures of the food to ensure that it is the right food. The company informed that it is a computer vision model based on deep learning.

    Time and Space

    The other prime factor the company takes into consideration is the time and space input. The uniqueness of on-demand services is that the customers need would change according to the time and location. The platform understands, whether it’s morning or afternoon and shows the restaurants and dishes accordingly.

    AI Strategy

    Swiggy has hired an AI team from across the globe. They have hired individuals who hold multiple PHDs from international universities, and people who work as senior scientists in places like GE research and IBM.

    They have built a separate team dedicated only to applied research. This team is different from the data science team. This team will concentrate on solving the problems of the next 100 customers, while there is a team that looks at immediate problems.

    The company receives terabytes of data weekly and around 40 billion messages per day. Swiggy has worked on putting this data to develop and build Machine Learning models. The company has said that they have also partnered to get third-party data.

    Swiggy is also working on Artificial Intelligence on computer vision where for example a picture of a menu is automatically taken and converted into a file.

    They are looking forward to building long-term capability by partnering with other research institutions and industries which are external. Swiggy has also partnered with various universities and institutions where they would fund the research programme and innovative ideas.

    This is a step where the university students and Swiggy scientists would be able to work together in developing innovative models. They have also partnered with Amazon Web Services and a lot of startups.

    FAQ

    Who is the Founder of Swiggy?

    Swiggy was founded by Nandan Reddy, Sriharsha Majety, and Rahul Jaimini.

    What is the valuation of Swiggy?

    Swiggy has a total valuation of $1 billion.

    How many orders a day does Swiggy have?

    Swiggy has a high number of orders with 1.4 million orders a day.

    Conclusion

    Swiggy has also made efforts to introduce Artificial Intelligence across the organization. This would help everyone build models around it. They have launched a training programme for their teams, analysts and even business leaders which is “AI for All”.

    The vision of the company is to make AI part of their culture which has led them to build the capability and knowledge in the organization said Swiggy’s technological head.

  • The Rapid Growth Of Foodtech Services In India

    The application of technology to food innovation forms the core of the foodtech vertical. Nicolas Appert’s improvement in 1810 of the canning procedure is an early example of foodtech innovation. The emphasis was on safeguarding sustenance. The procedure wasn’t called canning at that point, and Appert didn’t know the rule on which his procedure worked. Canning has majorly affected foodtech conservation strategies.

    Louis Pasteur’s exploration of the deterioration of wine and his portrayal of how to keep away from decay in 1864 was another example of foodtech development or food based startups. Other than examining wine deterioration, Pasteur explored the creation of liquor, vinegar, wines and brew, and the souring of milk. He focused on warming milk and milk items to pulverize food deterioration. In his investigation into sustenance innovation, Pasteur turned into a pioneer of bacteriology and paved way for preventive measures.

    Foodtech In India
    Top Foodtech Services In India
    Business Model Of Indian Foodtech Services
    The Growth Of Foodtech Services In India
    Future Of Foodtech Services In India

    Foodtech In India

    Food sustenance using tech was dull before 2018; however, it has rebounded from the stagnation. From a daily request volume of 3.7 lakh in 2017, as mentioned by RedSeer Consulting, the number expanded to 15 lakh as of September 2018. Unmistakably, the hunger for Foodtech is developing among buyers and speculators. After a phase where footech ventures like Tiny Owl, Yumist, and Dazo shut operations, things are now looking positive.

    “In the last six to eight months, numerous littler players have come in, while taxi aggregators have stretched out their administrations to the Foodtech accumulation space. With Ola gaining Foodpanda and Uber propelling Uber Eats, the challenge has increased in the market,” says Rohan Agarwal, a commitment administrator at RedSeer Consulting.

    Swiggy is the market chief in the sustenance accumulation space, timing around six lakh everyday orders, while Zomato is at a close second with near 5.2 lakh orders daily. Uber Eats, given its extension binge, has figured out how to topple Ola’s Foodpanda with around three lakh orders, while the latter serves nearly 2.5 lakh orders every day through its mobile app and website.

    In October, Foodpanda propelled its conveyance administration in 30 new urban areas, taking its aggregate to 50 urban areas crosswise over India. The target is to convey foodtech services in 100 urban areas. Foodpanda was acquired by SoftBank-supported Ola in December 2017. At the time, the taxi-hailing stage declared it would put $200 million in Foodpanda’s sustenance conglomeration business. Be that as it may, Ola’s rival has ended up being a considerable opponent in this space. Propelled in May 2017, Uber Eats put its focus on clients and baited them with heavy limits and first-request offers.

    Foodtech In India
    Food Tech Industry in India

    At present, Uber Eats is accessible in 37 urban areas in India and Southeast Asia and plans to multiply rapidly. “At some random topography, buyers can browse more than 30 foods on a normal,” says a Uber Eats representative. The more settled players, Zomato and Swiggy, have been growing their impressions. Zomato is looking at the level II-III urban areas for development. “We have our services in 59 urban cities in India. Our transient objective is to twofold down on our development by growing to more level of II-III urban areas in India and building profundity in level I advertises,” says a Zomato representative. “We have extended to 37 such urban cities in the past four months, and the reaction has just surpassed our desires.”

    Then, Swiggy conveys sustenance in 45 urban areas across India through its conveyance armada of more than one lakh riders. The aggregator claims to have a relationship with more than 45,000 cafés. Regardless of how reassuring the pattern, the reality remains that dedication sidesteps the Foodtech tech space. Purchasers rush to those offering the best arrangements or limits.  

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    Foodtech aggregators get a lot of their income through the commission charged on requests. Contingent upon the request size and the city, aggregators charge 15-30% commission to the eatery setting up the foodtech. Recuperating the expense of activity stays a test. Aside from commissions, in-application publicizing and reliability projects are different wellsprings of income for the aggregators.

    Some of them have begun facilitating cloud kitchen systems to get an advantage. Consider the Swiggy Access program, which permits its café accomplices to set up kitchen spaces in territories where they don’t have a nearness. Propelled in 2019, it appears to have worked for the organization. “We have Swiggy Access kitchens in different cities like Bengaluru, Delhi, Kolkata, Mumbai, and Hyderabad. Around 70% of our accomplice cafés are hoping to work with us in more than one Access,” says Vishal Bhatia, CEO of new supply, Swiggy. Over the long haul, Swiggy plans to convey as much as 20-25% of its requests from these conveyances from Access kitchens.

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    Top Foodtech Services In India

    India is a leading opportunity for foodtech companies. That is why many foodtech companies In India have already started their journey. So, the list of food tech companies in India are:

    Food Panda

    Foodpanda
    Foodpanda | Foodtech Companies In India

    The Big Daddy of em’ all! Foodpanda is India’s most popular foodtech startup. It has a solid national nearness by tying up with more than 2000 sustenance sellers, for example, Wendy’s, Burger King, Subway, Biryani Blues, and Southy. They have a broad scope of worldwide and national cooking styles in their menu. Foodpanda has an effective operational procedure and uses exclusive innovation to follow sustenance request conveyances until the client’s entryway.

    Zomato

    Food Tech Industry in India
    Zomato | Food Tech Industry in India

    Zomato is one of the successful food startups in India which is driving sustenance tech organizations alongside Foodpanda and Swiggy. It has more than 42,000 cafés recorded several urban areas in India, and it additionally works in more than 23 nations. On the off chance that it lives up to its guarantee, Zomato will become the principal Indian food startups or organisation. Its technique is substance-driven with low client obtaining costs, and a greater part of its income originates from promotion and publicity.

    Swiggy

    Swiggy | Food Startups
    Swiggy | Food Startups

    Bangalore-based Swiggy was established by Sriharsha Majety, Nandan Reddy, and Rahul Jaimini in 2014. Swiggy has more than 9000 eateries under its umbrella. It is one of the biggest food tech startups in India. The client gets convenient conveyances and constant following of their requests using Swiggy’s application at no additional conveyance charge. Swiggy doesn’t have a base request approach for each eatery it is tied up with over its application.

    Faasos

    Established by INSEAD graduates Jaydeep Barman and Kallol Banerjee in 2011, Faasos food tech startup has its presence in more than 15 noteworthy urban communities over India. An ideal case of a disconnected chain that went on the web, Faasos has a kitchen with master culinary experts.

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    FreshMenu

    food startups in india
    FreshMenu

    Established in 2014 by Rashmi Daga, who by chance happens to be a veggie-lover, FreshMenu works in Bangalore, Mumbai, Delhi, and Gurgaon. FreshMenu began with a modest one kitchen and has nearly 30 kitchens today serving universal food. It plans to expand to 80 kitchens in the coming years. It has a proficient group of 500 representatives in their kitchens who cook in-house, and have their very own conveyance group.

    Box8

    Established by two IIT graduates Amit Raj and Anshul Gupta, Box8 the Indian food startup serves credible Indian food much like how pizzas and burgers are conveyed to clients, for example, quick, simple and in a box Box8 has structured the ‘Across the board’ dinner box, a cutting edge, satisfying Indian feast which can be eaten anywhere at any time. Box8 has given an Indian curve to everything, from wraps and sandwiches to curries. The USP lies in item improvement.

    Box8’s paranthas are produced using whole wheat and cooked in a negligible measure of oil. None of its dishes is broiled. It has a collection of frozen yoghurts, feast boxes, wraps, sandwiches, plates of mixed greens, and treats. 85% of the exchanges are from rehash clients, making Box8 a commendable contextual investigation for a long-haul supportable model.

    HolaChef

    HolaChef is the food startup in India which was Established by IIT-Bombay graduates Saxena, Anil Gelra, and Ritu Rana, Mumbai based Hola Chef is sponsored by Mr Ratan Tata who has been placing his cash in a few advanced organisations recently. HolaChef conveys home-prepared food to its buyers while dealing with the total coordination of the sustenance, for example, bundling, stockpiling, and conveyance. It has developed from a humble 200 requests for every month in 2014 to more than 1 lakh orders each month in 2016. Almost 66% of its all-out requests are through the application available for Android and Apple phones.

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    Yumist

    Gurgaon-based Yumist was established by ex-Zomato CMO Alok Jain and Abhimanyu Maheshwari, a prepared F&B business person in 2014. At present, Yumist caters to the locales of Delhi, Noida, and Gurgaon. With an intense blend of foodtech, coordination, and innovation, Yumist possesses and controls the whole sustenance conveyance store network. Yumist considers the “dabbawala” and “corporate bottles” as its essential rivals and intends to reconsider the cost of its suppers to draw more clients and beat challenges. Yumist has shut down operations in Bangalore and plans to grow in Mumbai and Pune. It was in the news recently for raising Rs. 12 crores.

    Cook Gourmet

    This novel Gurgaon-based startup was launched by Sanny Chaudhary and Daman Singh Kohli. Cook Gourmet offers expert-curated plans comprising of different delicacies. These hand-picked plans are conveyed in an ice-pressed box, the cut vegetables and meat vacuum-fixed with the goal that they stay crisp until you cook them in the solaces of your home. They stay fresh up to 3 days when refrigerated. Indeed, even an amateur in cooking can expertly cook with the instructional exercises given in Cook Gourmet’s offerings.

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    Business Model Of Indian Foodtech Services

    At present, the Indian food services is a $50 billion industry when contrasted with the US Food Services Industry, which is worth almost around $600 billion. Large scale patterns like family units, more ladies joining the workforce, and higher expendable livelihoods are going to make the food tech industry in India develop at a high rate.

    With Zomato and Swiggy getting to be unicorn triumphs and online Foodtech conveyance requests crossing 1 million in daily conveyances, it is unquestionable that the Indian sustenance tech and administrations industry is a hot topic currently.

    food startups in India
    Skip The Queue – Foodtech Industry

    Moderateness And Openness

    The normal individual expends three dinners every day and roughly 90 suppers per month. Out of this, in India, individuals eat out or get sustenance conveyance possibly 3-4 times each month. In nations like China or Singapore, this can be as high as 50 dinners a month ate out or conveyed, as there are more decisions, quick conveyance, and reasonableness from sustenance organizations.

    A normal individual in India might want to spend between Rs 50-200 for their normal supper, and Foodtech conveyance organizations are attempting to hit the sweet spot of this range. Foodtech conveyance coordinations are showing signs of improvement and less expensive, with the growing number of orders and higher thickness of the populace in urban areas.

    Expanding Number Of Homegrown Eat-in Chains

    Dominos India with over 1,000 outlets, is doing Rs 3,000 crores yearly. Eatery networks like Barbeque Nation are accomplishing more than Rs 500 crores in business every year. There will be a lot more eat-in chains, with more than $1 billion yearly incomes, from India soon. Bunches of these eat-in chains like Farzi Cafe, Mamagato, Saravana Bhawan, and Yellow Chili have started extending outside India to scale quickly.

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    Delivery On Kitchen

    There are heaps of conveyance kitchens like Faasos, Box8, FreshMenu, and Biryani By Kilo which have more than 10-20 outlets each and is extending quickly. Given the high rental and CapEx required to eat in eateries, no one but kitchens can give better quality dinners at progressively moderate costs to clients, all in the comfort of clients’ homes and workplaces.

    Biryani Is The Newest Pizza

    Biryani is a conveyance class, specifically in India, will outperform pizza soon because of its taste, flavorful fragrances, and better life span.

    Enormous Retailers And Taxi Companies Are Gathering

    Premium friendliness brands around the world like Zuma Dine-in/Lounge and Nobu, with a couple of outlets each, do around $200 million in yearly deals or more. Huge organizations like McDonald’s and Starbucks accomplish more than $20 billion in deals. Overall foodtech conveyance organizations like Deliveroo, Delivery Hero, GrubHub, and Just Eat are huge unicorns today. Enormous retailers like Amazon and on-request taxi organizations like Uber and Ola need a bit of the sustenance conveyance for advertisements. Recurrence in foodtech utilization is a lot higher than most other web-based business classes, including taxi administrations.

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    The Growth Of Foodtech Services In India

    • According to RedSeer Consulting, the foodtech industry grew 150% from $120 million in 2015 to $300 million in gross product esteem in 2016. The business remained at a similar level in 2017 even as the foodtech vertical slithered again into a period of recovery from the unpleasant days. As per RedSeer,, the industry is on course to touch $2.5-3.5 billion by 2021.
    • The sustenance conveyance space saw 63 arrangements worth $274 million in 2015. The number of arrangements tumbled to 43 in 2016, adding up to $78 million. Although 2017 saw 20 subsidizing bargains, the combined estimation of those speculations was $124 million.
    food based startups in india
    Fund Raised By Foodtech Companies in India 
    • A commercial center totals and publicizes cafés other than maintaining a tech-driven coordinations foundation to convey sustenance. Then again, a cloud kitchen is a fairly intricate instrument where administrators endeavour to fabricate various parts of the foodtech business such as brand, tech foundation, etc.
    • Zomato, Swiggy, and Foodpanda are the prevailing commercial centres in India, while FreshMenu, Box8, Faasos, and HolaChef are unadulterated play cloud kitchens.
    • While Zomato and Swiggy keep on commanding the business, Ola’s pledge to infuse $200 million into Foodpanda India to grow its business is probably going to make it the third solid player in the game.
    • While Ola has the imperative capacities regarding coordinations, organize, and on-ground foundation, it is to be seen whether it can transform sustenance conveyance into a beneficial business. Ola had propelled two sustenance related activities in 2015 (Ola Cafe and Ola Store) and the shut the same in 2016 to concentrate on its central business.
    • Sustenance conveyance and other foodtech organizations in India commonly work on razor-slight edges. Foodpanda just as its fundamental adversaries, Zomato and Swiggy, are making misfortunes. Foodpanda, in any case, has lost less on each rupee in income than Zomato and Swiggy in 2017.
    • Bundl Technologies Pvt. Ltd, which runs Swiggy, timed income of Rs 133 crore in 2016-17, a six-crease increment from Rs 20 crore in the earlier year. Its misfortunes extended to Rs 205 crore in 2016-17 from Rs 137 crore the earlier year as costs increased dramatically. The three-year-old startup is one of the most encouraging sustenance conveyance players in the market right now.

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    • As indicated by a few media reports in November, Japanese telecom and Internet aggregate SoftBank was in discourses to contribute around $200-250 million (Rs 1,288-1,610 crore) in the homegrown foodtech conveyance stage. Reports additionally demonstrated that Chinese e-rear Alibaba likewise was investigating a conceivable interest through Ant Financial, its money related administrations member.
    • Another media report in November recommended that Flipkart and Tencent were investigating alternatives to co-put $100 million into Swiggy. There were additional reports of a potential Swiggy-Zomato merger.
    • Swiggy has raised more than $155.5 million until this point. It raised $80 million in a Series E round driven by South African innovation aggregate Naspers. Swiggy is additionally supported by Accel India, SAIF Partners India, Bessemer Venture Partners, Harmony Partners, and Norwest Venture Partners.
    • Zomato posted an income of Rs 332.3 crore in 2016-17, up 81% from Rs 183.9 crore in 2015-16. It limited its misfortunes to Rs 389 crore from Rs 590.1 crore. Zomato, in any case, isn’t only a Foodtech conveyance organization yet additionally offers café postings, table reservations, and different administrations.
    • The year likewise observed cloud kitchen administrator FreshMenu break into the best-five club of online foodtech organizations, on account of a noteworthy increment in income for 2015-16. It got a fix on the cloud kitchen model much before other foodtech businesses and has adhered to it.

    Future Of Foodtech Services In India

    Development in the market is foreseen by expanding discretionary cashflow, developing normal family unit pay, and rising pattern of twofold salary no-kids idea. Supported by developing web entrance from 10% in 2011 to 27% by 2015, expanding cell phone clients from 123 million in 2014 to 167 million by 2015, combined with maturing internet business market and rising youthful working populace, the food tech advertise in India is foreseen to develop at a vigorous pace.

    Journey And Future Of Foodtech Industry
    Journey And Future Of Foodtech Industry

    Another point of interest for foodtech organizations in India is the developing youth populace, fundamentally in urban districts of the nation. The nation has a huge base of youthful buyers who work in offices and don’t have the time to cook.

    In India, the idea of requesting foodtech online is gaining pace due to benefits like conveyance of sustenance at the doorstep of the client, choice of interchange instalment techniques, and consistent declaration of alluring cashback/limits offers.

    Growth Of Foodtech Industry
    Growth Of Foodtech Industry in India

    Based on activity type, the India foodtech market has been sectioned into two classes: café-based and sustenance aggregators. In 2015, eatery-based (i.e., café-based) ruled the general market and is foreseen to keep up its strength throughout the following five years.

    The foodtech aggregator section is relied upon to outpace café-based fragments sometime soon. Foodtech aggregators go about as a middle person between clients and eateries and give the alternative of browsing various cooking styles from different café and sustenance outlets enlisted with them.

    “Yum Foods, Jubilant Foodworks, Zoamto, and McDonald’s are the main players in India food tech showcase. These players are foreseen to keep up their strength in the market through 2021, transcendently because of their future extension plans. With expanding private value and investment subsidizing, the food tech organizations are centring towards growing their business in Tier II and III urban communities crosswise over India.

    With developing challenge, online sustenance requesting organizations are concentrating on giving quicker conveyance in significant metro urban communities to expand their client base.”, said Mr Karan Chechi, Research Director at TechSci Research, an examination-based worldwide administration counselling firm.

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    FAQs

    What does food tech mean?

    Food technology is a branch of food science that deals with the production, preservation, quality control and research and development of the food products.

    What is the food tech business model?

    the Indian food-tech industry has evolved immensely and engineered new ways to make profits. Prominent companies viz. Swiggy, Zomato, and Uber Eats have built up new business models, which enable them to serve better, besides merely focusing on the food delivery business.

    How technology has affected the food industry?

    By using tech to improve processing and packaging, it can improve the shelf life and safety of food. The use of machines in the food industry also ensures quality and affordability. By using machines, it drives down the costs of keeping the food fresh and increases productivity.

    What are the food tech startup ideas or What are the tips to build food based startups in India?

    Tips to build your food based startups in India or food tech startup ideas:

    • Focus on the product and keep it simple. Get busy in your kitchen to make small batches and go out to make people trying your product.
    • Start selling from day one & ask for feedback.
    • Be obsessed with gathering data.
    • Review feedback and be ready to go back to the drawing board.

  • Steps Taken by Online Food Delivery Startups amid CoronaVirus Outbreak

    The Coronavirus or COVID-19 which started last year in December in Wuhan, China has impacted the global economy and no industry sector has remained immune to it. All businesses, startups and industries across the globe are coming up with safety measures to deal with the virus like asking employees to work from home, avoid social gatherings, etc. Foodtech startups are no exception to this.

    Top Indian food delivery platforms Zomato and Swiggy together deliver an estimated 2.6 million orders every day. But they have taken multiple measures to deal with the situation. These measures ensure the safe food delivery considering the safety of delivery executive as well as consumers. The measures are helping these startups to keep operations going and to reduce any negative impact on consumer deliveries

    Foodtech Startups to Follow Hygiene Practices

    Indian foodtech startups Swiggy and Zomato have announced several safety measures in an effort to combat the novel coronavirus. While the Bengaluru based foodtech unicorn Swiggy already sent an email to all its consumers how they are taking the different measures to cope with the situation. Zomato soon followed suit with safekeeping measures of its own like contact-less delivery.

    The main focus of the announcements is to inform people about different measures that food delivery platforms are taking to ensure that their delivery partners follow all the safety and hygiene guidelines approved by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare(MoHFW). They also announced that the consumer will now have the option of choosing to ask the delivery partner to leave the food at their doorstep. Some startups are also offering insurance and financial support to delivery staff in case they are infected with the virus

    There are certain directives that these startups are following. They ensure that the crew member who assembles the food, the one who packs food and the delivery executive do not touch the food with bare hands and take all possible precautions to ensure hygiene. The delivery packets are sealed and delivered by a runner who drops the order at a pre-appointed spot usually outside the door and then watches from a safe distance while you pick up your order and go back inside.

    Co-founder and CEO of Zomato, Deepinder Goyal explained this through a tweet that “A consumer can now choose for this option through our ‘delivery instructions’ feature.” An app update over the weekend will make this explicitly clear to everyone.” Through this option, the delivery partner will keep the delivery parcel on a clean surface outside the door. When the consumer receives a photo of the delivered food, the consumer can then pick up the package at their convenience.

    As India prepares to face the current health crisis, Westlife Development, the company that owns and operates McDonald’s restaurants in West and South India, has launched contactless delivery service to deliver food to the customers’ doorstep. According to the company, McDonald’s India is ensuring that food reaches customers without being touched by bare hands and delivered safely with by following social distancing measures.

    “Our customers’ safety has been and will continue to be our top priority. On one hand, we have increased the safety and hygiene processes at our restaurants. On the other hand, we are ensuring contactless delivery to retain consumers’ trust in McDonald’s. Both our consumers and the industry look up to McDonald’s for path-breaking initiatives and contactless delivery,” said Smita Jatia, managing director of Hardcastle Restaurants.

    Online Food Deliveries Declining Fast

    Unfortunately, even after adopting the hygiene practices, online food delivery has seen huge fall in demand. Online food delivery orders for Zomato and Swiggy have dropped 70% in the last 10 days as customers step back and top restaurants shut shop during lockdown induced by the Covid-19 virus outbreak. The reason behind this is that people do not want to perform any practices, which in any way, can expose them to the virus.

    Their investors revealed that even before the lockdown, the orders had started declining. In the first two weeks of March, food delivery orders declined 20%. When lockdown was imposed, Swiggy and Zomato said about 60 to 70% of its cities would be shut for food delivery including few prominent ones. As a result, steady state of 2.5 million deliveries a day, the deliveries have fallen down quickly. In the last 10-15 days, online food delivery orders have dropped 70% to under 1 million a day.

    But considering food delivery startups, the Grocery delivery apps are in demand more than ever not only in India but in many countries during this health crisis. As many countries are under lockdown, the governments are asking people to strictly avoid getting out of their houses to maintain social distancing. Hence, majority of the people are relying on the Grocery delivery apps to avoid social gatherings.

    As the COVID-19 pandemic spreads across the countries, grocery delivery apps have begun seeing record numbers of daily downloads, according to new data from app store intelligence firm Apptopia. The firm said that online grocery apps like Instacart, Walmart Grocery and Shipt hit yet another new record for daily downloads for their respective apps.

    Typically, these apps see tens of thousands to as many as 20,000+ downloads per day. But on April 12, Instacart saw more than 38,500 downloads and Walmart Grocery saw nearly 54,000 downloads. Experts told the delivery strategies need to be better optimised at this time of uncertainty. Considering grocery is in high demand, this makes sense for all players involved in it.

    Also Read: Ideally Tested Food Business Ideas you can Start in 2020

    Zomato & Swiggy will also deliver Groceries Now

    In India too, Grofers, BigBasket and other grocery delivery apps have seen a boom in demand over the past week on the back of panic buying. As many consumers are stuck at home, they are heavily relying on these online grocery stores offering doorstep delivery. Seeing these demands, many foodtech startups are also turning towards these grocery sales to earn some revenue.

    Food-delivery and restaurant discovery app Zomato has decided to try hands at the grocery sale as the category sees a major demand amid the Covid-19 outbreak. The Gurugram-based startup Zomato has decided to partner with e-grocers, Grofers and BigBasket, to sell food products and essentials on its platform by facilitating their deliveries.

    Online Grocer Delivery or E-grocer
    Zomato & Swiggy have started to Deliver Grocery in Major Cities

    Zomato has begun delivering grocery in more than 80 cities in India. Users can access this service by downloading the Zomato app and visit the Zomato Market section. Zomato Market identifies nearby grocery stores that are available and open for delivery. They have started grocery delivery in 80 plus cities across India to help with the supply of essentials.

    CEO & founder of Zomato, Deepinder Goyal said, “Our delivery network in the country is the second best after India Post. Thus, we are ensuring that in every effort we put it to good use to serve the community. We would like to thank the government authorities, grocery stores, FMCG companies and other startups that have come forward to partner with us and support the community in this endeavour.”

    Apart from its grocery deliveries, Zomato has also extended paid Zomato Gold memberships by two months at zero additional cost. This new extension is valid in India, UAE, Australia, Indonesia, Philippines, Lebanon, Turkey, New Zealand, Portugal, and Qatar.

    The food delivery app Swiggy is also not behind in this league. Swiggy has announced a new service to deliver groceries through the application. The lockdown has encouraged the company to spread this service to over 125 new cities across India. Swiggy will be providing essential commodities by partnering with numerous national brands.

    Swiggy has launched a hyper local delivery service called ‘Genie’ that will pick and drop items from any local store that is open. The service is currently only available for essentials and even medicines. During the launch of the service in September last year, the service was labeled ‘Swiggy Go’.

    Swiggy will be partnering with Hindustan Unilever Ltd., P&G India, Godrej Consumer Products Ltd., Dabur India Ltd., Marico Ltd., Vishal Mega Mart Pvt. Ltd., Adani Wilmar Ltd., Cipla Ltd to provide essential items across various cities.

    Also Read: Abhinay Choudhary: Simplified Grocery Shopping Through BigBasket

    Conclusion

    Due to lockdown, Swiggy and Zomato are finding it difficult to grow online food deliveries but this has led them to partner with local grocery shops to provide essentials to the people who want to avoid social gatherings. But this has given people a good opportunity to maintain social distancing by ordering groceries from home only.

  • Ideally Tested Food Business Ideas you can Start in 2020

    Food is the basic necessity of the life and now has also become a luxury in many cases. People around the world love to eat delicious food, due to which there is a huge demand for food business ideas with low investment. To run any business successfully, you must have interest in doing that thing. Many people like to eat variety of food, many people like to make different kind of fusion food, many people like to make food for others. So, if you have interest and operate this business properly, it is very rare to find a food business failing to succeed. Here we have made list of startup food business ideas.

    1. Catering Services

    Catering Service as a Food Business Ideas
    Catering Service | Food Business Ideas

    Catering service is a popular business idea in the food industry. Do you love hosting parties, making food for your friends and family members? Then, this is best food business to start. For every small and big gathering and get together people are always looking for catering services. Apart from that, you will get business through event planners also. Catering business ideas in India is great idea as Indians give lot of importance to food in any sort of program, function, parties.

    With moderate investment and proper planning, any individual can initiate a catering service of his own. Moreover, catering services are rising at a rapid rate to cater the need of customers and it is ideally a great food business ideas which can be started with low investment and can give you a high return.

    2. Coffee Shop Business Idea

    Coffee Shop as a Food Business Ideas
    Coffee Shop | Food Business Ideas

    Coffee is such a beverage which most of the people need to drink twice or more in day. Many people start their day with Coffee and many people end their day with coffee. Are you expert in making special coffee? Then this is the perfect business idea for you. Over the past decade, the coffee shop business is increasing rapidly. An entrepreneur who is passionate and talented about coffee can initiate coffee shop business with substantial capital investment. Although, the coffee shop is actually treated as a place outside of work and home to relax. Coffee shop business is one of the best ways to turn into a profit making business.

    Furthermore, a classic successful coffee shop chain is Cafe Coffee Day which has a significant presence throughout the globe and now the rising coffee house which is much more renowned as Starbucks is expanding its outlet network in India. India with its high population and never-ending demand gives a very good opportunity to start a food business with a coffee shop chain.

    3. Baking Business Idea

    Bakery as a Food Business Ideas
    Bakery | Food Business Ideas

    Are you an expert in baking cakes, breads? Do you like to make cake have tempting look with beautiful icing? Then, this idea is perfect for you. A bakery business can be initiated in two ways. You can establish a bakery with a retail location and sell fresh baked items from your store or you can establish a large scale bakery unit and sell product through the retailers. The bakery is one of the proven and most profitable food business ideas that can be initiated with proper planning.

    However, some famous bakery which has quickly grown itself from scratch are Cookie Jar, Krazy For Chocolates, French Loaf, etc. They have immensely grown themselves with little investment and a great food business idea to work on.

    4. Buffet Restaurant

    Buffet Restaurant as a Food Business Ideas
    Buffet Restaurant | Food Business Ideas

    Buffet only restaurant is one of the most trending food business ideas. People always love to have the food according to their own choices by selecting from many options. Right location and proper marketing strategy are important in starting a buffet restaurant business idea. As well as one price, all-you-can-eat buffet-style restaurants have become extremely popular with the budget-minded dining crowd. This is a good food business ideas.

    Unlike a typical restaurant, a buffet restaurant has one major benefit for the operator–shorter work hours. Typically, buffet restaurants cater to lunch and supper diners and do not open until 11 a.m. and are closed by 9 p.m. Based on volume, a buffet restaurant can be very profitable, as often the operating overheads are much lower than similarly-sized restaurants, simply due to the fact that fewer employees are required to run the business. Additionally, wholesale food items can also be purchased for lower cost based on volume buying, which adds to beefed-up profits.

    5. Cooking Classes

    Cooking Classes as a Food business
    Cooking Classes | Food Business Ideas

    If you love to cook and enjoy crafting new tasty food recipes then you should consider starting a cooking classes business. This can be initiated as a home-based business with small capital. You can have business tie-ups with the retail store that sell fresh fruits. Many people wish they had skills in the kitchen and are willing to pay to learn. Like other culinary jobs, a cooking instructor can focus on a specific area, such as baking or grilling, or be a generalist.

    You can lead cooking instruction in your home, or have someone videotape you and you can sell the videos as part of a home-learning course. Another option is to create your own cooking show posted on YouTube, which can pay you advertising income. Therefore, one opportunity in segment gives you a by-opportunity to generate more and more money by little effort. This is a good food business ideas from home.

    6. Food Truck Business Idea

    Food Truck as a Food Business
    Food Truck | Food Business Ideas

    The mobile food truck business is different from the normal restaurant in two major ways. One is you are moving and you don’t have a permanent location. Second is you are going to the customers. A person having minimum experience in the food service industry can initiate this business in the city area. This can be a small food business idea. From food truck, you can sell frozen and packaged items like ice cream, soft drinks, sweets, and snacks or you can go for cooked items with a specific menu including for breakfast, Tiffin, lunch. Food truck business is profitable in India as people opt for outside food more now a days.

    There are two types of food carts: the mobile food preparation vehicle (MFPV), where food is prepared as customers wait, and the industrial catering vehicle (ICV), which sells only prepackaged foods. An MFPV costs more than an ICV, and both cost more than a food cart. A used hot dog cart may cost under Rs. 50,000, while a retro-fitted used food truck typically costs Rs. 80,000 or more. A new MFPV could cost upwards of Rs. 120,000. Complying with additional health department rules and regulations can also drive up food truck costs.

    7. Juice Business Ideas

    Juice Bar as a Food Business
    Juice Bar | Food Business Ideas

    The juice bar is one of the most popular food business ideas from the early days. You can also keep cool drinks including fresh fruit juices. Fresh juice bar can be initiated with low startup capital. Location plays an important role in getting success. A juice bar that serves customers fresh-squeezed fruit juice drinks and smoothies is a fantastic new business enterprise to put into action, as more and more people are striving to lead healthier lifestyles.

    Ideal locations to establish a juice bar include busy tourist attractions and beach areas, mall food courts, fitness clubs, and public markets. To boost sales and profits, additional items such as sandwiches, salads, and healthy snacks can also be added to the menu. The profit potential for a juice bar will vary based on factors such as operating overhead and total sales. However, an established and well-run juice bar can easily generate profits in excess of Rs. 50,000, and the profits can go much higher by adding additional menu items and delivery services.

    8. Pizza Delivery Business Idea

    Pizza Delivery as a Food Business Ideas
    Pizza Delivery | Food Business Ideas

    Now a days, people like fast food more. Pizza Delivery can be good fast food business idea. The main focus area of the pizza delivery business is choosing a right delivery boy and preparing the menu. A lot of the people will likely to have meals at their doorsteps due to their busy work schedule. Pizza is now well known, favorite, tasty dish all over the world. Although, starting a pizza delivery business can be profit making. There are two ways to start a pizza delivery business. You can either learn how to make your own pizza (which you would deliver to your customers on order) or partner with a notable pizza shop and simply buy from them to deliver whenever there is an order.

    9. Sea Food Selling

    Sea Food Market as a Food Business Idea
    Sea Food Selling | Food Business Ideas

    Initiating a specialty seafood selling business is a wonderful and profitable business idea one can start from their home. You will need to source the products as a wholesale purchase and store them in a freezer. Through a delivery vehicle, you can make the delivery at customers door step. Proper product promotion plan is required in this business. This can be a good food business idea with small capital.

    10. Tea Bag Making

    Tea Bag making as a Food Business Idea
    Tea Bag Making | Food Business Ideas

    Tea bag making business requires only two major raw material components tea and paper bags. A tea bag is a small sealed bag containing tea leaves and it is used with a hot cup of water to prepare the drink called tea. An aspiring entrepreneur having good knowledge about tea leaves can start the tea bag making business with moderate capital investment. However, the tea bag has a high sale as leading coffee shops, airlines, hotels, trains, etc, provide tea bags to their customer. Furthermore, you can start with a premium tea bag and set up high-quality tea with different natural flavors to cater to the need for tea lovers.

    11. Organic Food Shop

    Organic Food | Food Business Ideas

    If you health conscious and you really give stress on quality before buying food, then this new food business idea is perfect for you. Now a days people are more conscious about health and what they are eating. People have started understanding the importance of organic food. They are ready to pay little extra and buy organic food. If you like farming, you can also do organic farming and sell products. This can be best food business ideas in India.

    India ranks as the single largest producer of organic foods worldwide. You have many options to do organic food business depending upon availability of sources. Like,

    • Organic Farming
    • Organic Kitchen Garden
    • Organic Juice Stall
    • Organic Fertilizer
    • Organic Vegetable Seeds
    • Organic Health Supplements
    • Organic Body and Skincare Products
    • Organic Baby Food
    • Organic Fish Farm
    • Organic Poultry Farm
    • Organic Food Export
    • Organic Recipe Book

    Like these, many options are there if you start thinking.

    Also Read: Amalgamation of AI/ML in India’s food Tech Domain

    Being an enthusiast for food, these food business ideas with low investment will be great for you, so try them when in need. Also, do let us in the comment if you already have any Food Business which are running successfully.