Cooked By Mom- Bangalore

There is absolutely no age or stage in life when you would not wish for the simplest of meals from your mom’s kitchen. A new entry to the world of start-ups which cater to your cravings for a home cooked meal- We present to you Cooked by Mom. The name says it all!

I caught up with Anurag Kamandula, one of the founders of Cooked By Mom to know more about this venture that came into existence a month ago. Anurag is a management graduate from IMI Delhi. He has extensive experience in the e-commerce sector, and has headed his own business unit in his last job. Having stayed away from home for more than seven years, Anurag constantly missed home cooked meals. “Intially it’s fun to try out new restaurants and eat out on a regular basis, but slowly it starts seeping in, that there is something missing.” While working in Chennai, Anurag found a home chef who gave him and his colleagues “proper home cooked meal. We were part of a small organization; we did not have food courts or great options for food at work. Once we found this home chef, we could see the positive impact it had  on us”.

Although this was his first tryst with the initial idea of Cooked By Mom, Anurag started his entrepreneurial journey with another venture in the social shopping space. When the project dint move at the pace he expected, Anurag started thinking about other ideas. He re-connected with an old colleague Malay Verma, who is now his co-founder in Cooked By Mom. Malay is a Management graduate from NIT Trichy, and together they are trying to give people in Bangalore a piece, or in this case should I say a plate of home away from home.

“The idea was always on the back of my mind ever since I found the home chef in Chennai and experienced first-hand the effect of getting home cooked meals. I realized there were many people I knew who were going through the same thing on a daily basis”.

Anurag tells me about this one incident when he was on the phone with his mother and she said she was cooking with brinjals, “I never liked brinjals before, but at that point I realized I even missed that vegetable”. I could immediately connect to this sentiment, where dishes you would never touch before are now a delicacy.

When the Cooked By Mom team started working on this idea further, they realized that there are many home chefs who showed the same enthusiasm that they had for this concept. “When we started connecting with home chefs, we realized they are equally excited about this opportunity.”-he adds. The Cooked By Mom team found that many home chefs missed the opportunity to cook elaborate meals as their kids had moved out, and they did not want to let go of all the expertise they had gained. I was immediately reminded of my interview with Annie Cherian of The Saturday Kitchen, who spoke about using her cooking skills after her children moved out-“use it or lose it”. I didn’t want to lose it!”.

The Cooked By Mom team found many home chefs who were happy to be a part of this venture, more for the social recognition and the way people respond to their delicious food. The app features these home chefs and Anurag says they strike a chord with the customers. So much so, that people actually call him up and ask him if a particular home chef can prepare some more food for them. The Cooked By Mom team has a rigorous background check, which they do before they add a home chef to their bandwagon. They visit the chefs, taste the food, check the kitchens and then approve of them. It does not end here. The team also has a food consultant, who checks the food every now and then to ensure quality is the same through and through.  They also provide the home chefs with packaging material and boxes to make sure the food is delivered in the right manner.

Cooked By Mom’s App enables you to identify home chefs close to your vicinity. “Our app shows you the chefs within 5km of your residence. Once you place the order, our delivery boy will pick up the food and deliver it to you. This way we minimize the time of delivery, and the food is fresh and warm for the customer.”

Cooked By Mom’s App has been developed with the help of Anurag’s friends who are an integral part of the development team. They even assist them to introduce new features in the App. The whole team  is well connected and there is an understanding between them to effectively meet the deadlines.They are also big fans of midnight coffee! One of the challenges which they initially faced was of demand forecasting. However, things are falling in place and now they are able to predict the potential orders. Something I found very remarkable about this team is how they handle the excess food. All the excess food is delivered to an NGO for children.

Having a balanced approach to this venture, and ensuring all the glitches are fixed in the initial stage, the team is working hard to make this venture a unique platform for home chefs. “If chefs are really interested in catering to many people but find scalability an issue, we would like to become that platform which helps them achieve those dreams. We would be more than happy if one of these home chefs has their own restaurant one day. We would love to see them get the recognition they deserve. We hope Cooked By Mom will go onto become a lot more”- he adds.

Although this whole conversation is something future entrepreneurs will find very useful, we still went ahead and asked Anurag for advice based on his entrepreneurial journey. “Having burnt my hand once already, I can say for sure that the people you choose to work with matter. Choose a team that shares your vision and is passionate about what the venture is doing. Most importantly believe in what you do. No idea is exclusive. I know the same idea may be recreated by someone else tomorrow. What is important is to execute it well, and give people a quality product to look forward to.”

Cooked By Mom is planning to expand in Bangalore, and they already have the chefs on board to back them up. They are also working constantly to improve their App for better customer experience and are trying to get more people to know about their concept. If you are reading this and are in Bangalore, what are you waiting for! Get started by downloading their app right away.

We wish this team good luck with all their plans.

Cooked By Mom is a Bangalore based food delivery service that gives you fresh, home cooked meals. Do like their Facebook page to know more. Don’t forget to download their app .

Images Courtesy of Cooked By Mom