Living in a bustling city like Bengaluru, one never runs short of options to eat out. Every corner of the city a new food joint opening up. And for the number of people making Bengaluru their home due to their jobs, this is a dream come true. But for how long can you survive outside food? At some point people will always crave for the dal-chawal that their moms and granny’s make. Through her startup, Bengaluru-based Rachna Rao is wants to bring to light the countless home cooks whose talent is limited to only their homes and families. Talking to her we find out more.
This proactive app in the city ensures that home cooks can not only broadcast their culinary skills but can offer those services to people craving for simple ghar ka khana.
Have you found your mouth watering as the aromas of neighbour’s food wafts through the air? Wouldn’t you want to taste it immediately? With such ideas in mind, FoodyBuddy came to life.
She shares, “There are so many talented home chefs and so many who people who don’t know how to cook or don’t have the time. Many of these people are neighbours who can help each other!”
Before starting this app, Rachna and her co-founders — Akil Sethuraman and Anup Gopinath had to understand the requirements and realised that the needs of a home chef are very different from that of a typical commercial establishment. Talking about their motivation, Rachna shares, “I think every single home chef we met motivated us to go ahead with this. The excitement we saw in their faces convinced us that we were on the right track.”
Through this initiative, home chefs will what they want to sell, how many servings they want to sell, the price, delivery or pickup timings and order cut off time. All that the buyer has to do is select what they want to eat from the app. Having empowered over 2000 home chefs, we asked her why home cooked food when there are so many food joints available? “Home cooked food will offer regional delicacies that are not easily found in restaurants. Dishes like authentic Bengali patishapta or Rajasthani kanji vada or Andhra gottu Vankaya or Gujarati khandvi will be easily available.” The support that they have gotten so far is what brought them so far. “Buyers have repeatedly told us that they have been able to get dishes here that they only get to eat when they visit their hometown.”
Being born in Mumbai, Rachna has been a Bengalurean for the past seven years. She shares her family and friends have been extremely supportive. “Akil is my husband and Anup and I were colleagues for four years before we started this app. So all three of us were good friends and knew each other very well before we started this company,” she adding that the responses has been heartwarming.
An avid reader and globetrotter Rachna concludes adding, “We are just getting started on this journey of connecting people through food. We want to empower millions of home chefs. We believe that anyone with a passion and talent for cooking should be able to share that with the world. “
