In amidst
of uncertainty of funding and negativity on whole food tech startups world,
there are a handful of companies that are able to survive and sustain in the market
with unit level profit. These companies are more concerned about their
expenditure, profits and losses over GMV or revenue. In this article, I want to
introduce one such startup operating from HSR layout (peaceful residential
area) of Bangalore. They have taken baby steps and built a fixed prototype that
is able to sustain on its own, grow month-on-month by optimizing its
supply-chain, procurement of items and delivery system. Let’s break the
suspense! I am talking about YumKitchen,
a food startup that operates in the late night, specialised in Chinese, North
Indian and Continental cuisines.This is a startup co-founded by 3 young
passionate entrepreneurs who want make a difference in Food industry by
supplying yummy (yum is taken from yummy) food at a reasonable price in
quickest time.
Deepak, the co-founder, left his high paying job to
purse his entrepreneurial journey was accompanied by his friends Nirvan and
Avinash in making YumKitchen live. Let’s find more about his journey and also
the future plans of this venture.
What is YumKitchen
and how was it started?
YumKitchen is late night restaurant catering food to
Midnight Madness (techies, gamers, employees, students etc). We are operating
from Bangalore (main kitchen is in HSR layout, and extended kitchen is in
Electronic City). We started Yum kitchen 7 months back. We started YumKitchen
as online QSR (Quick Service Restaurant) that serves Indian style of food made
by the cuisine specialists catering to everyone.
I always have passion for entrepreneurship. I started and
closed a homemade food company 4 years back when I was working at Puma. Though
I was working as a full time employee with good salary, there was this
entrepreneurship bug on the back of my mind. After settling all financial
commitments, I began to think of starting something big and branded. For 1
year, I have done an in-depth analysis of Food industry and opportunities in
various food industry segments. From my research, it was clear that this is an
unorganised industry and people are willing to stick a brand who can supply
tasty food with best-in-class service in terms of delivery, quantity and
punctuality.
What is the
market size of your startup?
According to ibef.org, India Food Service is going to
grow from $48 billion to $78 billion in 5 years from 2015 to 2020. QSR segment
alone is projected to be of 16,785 crores INR. Presently, there are few
international players like Dominos, McDonalds, Yum Restaurant that own small
pie of this QSR business. Most of the business is un-organized and is dominated
by local vendors. We want to create a QSR brand that supplies traditional
Indian food with best-in-quality and taste!
How Yum
Kithcen Operates?
As a food business person, I wanted the brand to have
full control on food that is prepared, supply chain and logistics to give wow
factor for the customer. Hence, we prepare the food, do an optimal supply chain
decreasing the food wastage and by using a proprietary model of delivery, we
are able to satisfy the customer on all fronts. Supply-chain and
What is the
present status?
Presently, we have 1 main kitchen in HSR layout that
caters to most of the night-out localities like HSR, Kormangala, Indira Nagar,
Bellandur, BTM 1st and 2nd Stage, Bommanhalli,
Lakkasandra, Sarjapur (main road). We have a franchise at electronic city too!
We want to open 3 more kitchens to cover complete Bangalore (North, South,
East, West and Central).
Are you
planning to raise funding and how much?
We want to expand as soon as possible in this segment with-in
Bangalore and to other metros like Mumabi, Pune, Delhi-NCR, Chennai, Hyderabad
etc. and also want to start new entities like Digital Kiosks, Food trucks etc.
We want to raise a minimum of 1 crore rupees. We have talked to couple of HNIs
and Angel investors. One of them is keen on our model and it is in advance
discussions. We will update you on this.
What will
you do with funding?
First and foremost, we want to build brand for Yum Kitchen. Secondly, we want
to strengthen our logistics and create intuitive website and app. We will open
3 more kitchens to cover whole Bangalore. Also, we will do selected marketing
(primarily digital marketing).
More details at www.yumkitchen.in
