- Lakenhalle Chicken with Grilled Chicken, Italian Parmesan Cheese, and home-made tomato sauce
- Eyck With Grilled Chicken, Home-made Sundried Tomato Paste and Mascarpone Cream Cheese Dressing
- Ledeberg with River Sole Fish, Sautéed Vegetables and Mashed Potatoes.
Sounds exotic? What if we told you that you could be the chef behind these dishes, and make them each in 20 mins or less. “InnerChef” is here to give you the right tools and bring out the chef within you. We caught up with the team behind this venture.
Founders of “InnerChef” come with a myriad of experience, and in their own words are “a mix of humble and hungry, serial and young entrepreneurs, who bring complimentary skills to the table”. Here is a brief introduction to the founders of “InnerChef”.
“Rajesh Sawhney (Strategy & Vision) is a serial entrepreneur, Founder of GSF Accelerator, Founding President of Reliance Entertainment, Founded Times Internet Ltd./ indiatimes.com, and Angel investor in India and across the world.
Bal DiGhent (Operational Excellence) is also a serial entrepreneur, Founder of DiGhent (successful bistro and boulangerie in Gurgaon), and 11 years of experience in hospitality from Australia.
Heena Karia (Food Delight) is a trained professional chef from ICCA Dubai with 5 years of M&A experience at KPMG Chicago. She has also designed and directed culinary tours.
Rahul Samat (Growth & Analytics) has a Masters from UPenn. Has worked as EIR at TechPeaks (Italy). Before that, he was a BizOps and Strategy at Capital One (DC Metro Area), Product Management at Barclays (NYC).
Uday Bansal (Tech & Distribution) has an MBA from London Business School. He is also the Founder of Skybulls and has worked as a Strategy Consultant at KPMG, Entrepreneur at Startup Chile, and a self-taught programmer”
So how did “InnerChef” come to be? “The genesis of the venture was Sawhney’s 12-year old kid who had issues with home cooked food, like any kid his age Sawhney says this is a growing problem for any parent as other food alternatives would be pizza or burgers, both unhealthy options.” Sawhney realized that the there was an expansion of Indian palates, but not of ingredients. “InnerChef” aims to fill this void.
They launched their first line of home products with 16 European recipes, and their first line of office products with 6 Panini + salad and juice combos. “We plan to expand to Oriental and Modern Indian cuisines soon. Our target is to have 25-30 menu items on InnerChef at all times, refreshing on a weekly basis. This allows us to introduce new cuisines and featured dishes around the year that compliment a core set of recipes/meals that our audience like.” Having two founders on their team, who come from hospitality (owner of a successful bistro/restaurant) and culinary (trained chef) background, R&D for new recipes happens in house and is driven by them. “In addition, we also have cooks in our kitchen staff who execute under our chef’s direction.” Their products are classified as follows:
A) Home Products:
– Launched: Recipe box, meal kit with 16 recipes. More recipes coming soon.
– Diversity: Planning to launch Oriental and Indian Fusion cuisines next.
– Next version: Ready to eat offerings.
B) Office Products:
– Launched: Ready To Eat lunch products.
– Menu: 6 salad + panini and fresh juice combos.
– Target: Working lunch solutions.
C) Snack Products:
– In R&D currently.
– Target to launch by June 2015.
– Priced around INR 100.
– Fresh, tasty alternatives to unhealthy snack consumption.
Having such an interesting spread on their menu, they are sure to grab the attention of food lovers. “It’s a challenging business and we are working very hard. We are building scale in Gurgaon and are getting a lot of repeat customers and new customers through word of mouth. People like our food a lot and at the end of the day, that’s what we work for.”
Speaking to a team with such rich experience, we cannot resist but ask for some advice “Be passionate! If you have the passion, you will be able to have resilience and overcome all the hurdles that you need to in order to build a successful business.”
InnerChef has expansion plans for 2015. “We plan to expand from Gurgaon to other markets in India. We will launch in Delhi (May), Noida (June), Bangalore (June-July) and Bombay (June-July) in Q2 2015. Trials with 100 founding guests in a closed beta, have been eye opening sessions for our products, which has led to product evolution, and has positioned us well for our public launch. “
Where does InnerChef want to go from here? “We intend to continually innovate and extend our product lines based on the need gaps of our target audience, as we have a platform setup for scale and evolution.“
Inner Chef is currently operational in Gurgaon & Delhi .
Visit their website or their Facebook page for more information.
Images Courtesy Of InnerChef