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
