Chennai started shedding its conservative image several years ago, although it may not be quite apparent to the rest of the country. One of the signs was international cuisine entering the city, which was always identified with boring vegetarian meals. There are more Korean eateries in Chennai than in any other part of the country. A new breed of entrepreneurs are now changing the food business even further. They are clued into the changing profile of the city which has seen 10 years of BPO success and salaries, internal migration and growing double income families. Eating out, ordering food and ready-to-eat meals are gaining popularity.
Take the example of Vinit Chordia who launched Chennai’s largest food delivery service Dinein.in, which started operations in January 2012. Chordia did his masters from the University of Cardiff, UK. He designs the systems and processes for Dinein.in. Earlier he had founded Recordsguru Information Management Pvt Ltd, a document management company. About Dinein.in, Chordia says, “We have aggregated restaurants which do not do home delivery or have limited delivery. Our customers can enjoy their favourite meal from these places in the comfort of their homes. Over time, we developed the right mix of technology and customer experience.” Dinein.in has an e-Commerce enabled mobile app which has all restaurant partner menus listed, enabling easy discovery of restaurants. The customer can place an order and pay by cash on delivery by credit or debit card. Organised home delivery offering multiple choices is a new concept, says Chordia. He is targeting people aged 18-35, dual income homes, working couples, singles, nuclear families and visiting population in service apartments and hotels.
Dinein.in’s closest competition is restaurants delivering on their own. Listing aggregators such as Zomato, Burrp and goGrab offer pick-up facility and tie-ups with individual restaurants if they want their food to be delivered. Chordia senses an opportunity in this as well. So far, there have been 70% repeat customers and 30% new sign-ups every month. “We are enablers at short notice. We enable this instant generation to order food and get it delivered to them from the not-so-instant restaurateurs. We play the bridge mechanism.”
Bhuvanesh Subbarayan, who comes from a business family in Tiruppur, went to Australia to study international management and discovered donuts. He found that he and his friends just kept ordering more and more donuts and never seemed to get enough. He decided to launch exclusive donut outlets in Chennai. That too egg-free kinds. To do that, he interned in Singapore with a donut enterprise. On his return, he set up Pandora Hospitality Pvt Ltd, Chennai’s first-ever exclusive donut store, with flavours and fillings the city had never tasted before. That was in 2011. Bhuvanesh says he has brought international quality, standards and superior taste to his Donut House.
His gamble and instincts have paid off. There are now eight outlets in Chennai. “Hyderabad and Vellore have two outlets each and have been operational for almost a year. We have franchisees in Bangalore, Thiruvananthapuram, Kottayam, Vizag and Vijayawada. Kottayam will have two outlets which will be opened this month. Bangalore and Thiruvananthapuram will open two outlets each before Christmas.” He plans to go all over south, soon.
The ubiquitous idli was turned on its head when RU Srinivas, the CEO of a large BPO, decided he was being overcharged for it in a local eatery. Srinivas had a moment of epiphany. He visualised a central kitchen that would keep real estate costs low, cut costs of air-conditioning and on-table service. Exactly a year later, Srinivas had given up his BPO job and was ready with his product. It was the milagai podi idlis (idlis covered with a special chilli powder). People carried milagai podi idlis for long journeys in the pre-sandwich days.
Srinivas runs the business with his operating partner Rajan Ramaswamy, who was also his colleague at the BPO. Ramaswamy takes care of day-to-day operations. Srinivas looks after product positioning and financing. The idlis are bite-sized bars designed to fit into handbags. They are called Madras Bars. Srinivas says they are currently approaching airlines, supermarkets and caterers. “We target anyone who doesn’t have the time to sit down and eat a meal.”
Based in the city, the central kitchen currently has the capacity to make 400 boxes of Madras Bars an hour. Apart from the factory outlet, idlis are sold through 25 retailers across Chennai. The product is flying off the shelf, but they have not yet found a way to reach everybody by 10 am. They are figuring out how to take care of the logistics. Meanwhile, the team is experimenting with new flavours.
Triguni Food sells its ready-to-eat hot meals to airlines and institutional clients, among others. Its founder Radha Daga was a successful garment exporter based in Chennai. When she decided to launch her food business in 2011, she was almost 70. This was a passion she wanted to pursue. Radha made a start with the traditional route of making marmalades and jams, but was warned by friends that this would require deep pockets. Then she started experimenting ready-to-eat food and set up Triguni Food.
She learnt dehydrating the food by experience, bought machines from an American supplier, adapted them to suit Indian conditions, and launched different products after testing them out for a substantial period of time and ensuring their quality and shelf life. Every batch of food that is made is tested for quality. Triguni Food’s menu includes vegetable biryani, bisi bele bath, poha, tamarind rice, cheese rice, semiya kichadi, rava kesari, among others.
Radha went into this business thinking that her customers will be mostly students. She realised this was too expensive for them. A cold call in 2012 from IndiGo Airlines asking for a sample changed her marketing strategy and also her company’s fortunes. IndiGo now accounts for nearly 90% of Triguni Food’s sales. Radha is targeting more institutional clients and trying to increase retail sales. She sells under the label EZE. She is working on increasing the output from the nearly 90,000 tubs Triguni Foods makes now. Then she can expand to other cities.
There are more food entrepreneurs springing up every day in the city and angel and PE investors are looking at them with great interest.
sushila.ravindranath@expressindia.com