BENGALURU:With an aim to address the long-standing problem of access to hygienic and fresh food for famished travellers, time-starved professionals and anybody on the move, Frshly, a food dispensing retail start-up ,is serving fresh and hot food.
Launched in 2013, Frshly is an automated fresh food dispensing retail startup. It serves fresh and hot food from the best restaurant brands, within just 90 seconds, much like withdrawing money from an ATM.
Freshly has 18 automated outlets at railway stations, airports, IT parks, corporate hubs and hospitals, across Bengaluru, Chennai, Secunderabad, Kolkata and Aurangabad.
The concept of this cutting-edge food solution struck Satish Chamyvelumani, founder and CEO of Frshly, when he had an experience with food while travelling by train. He wasn’t happy with the options he got during his journey, which made him want to solve the transit food problem. For those who are travelling, fresh quick and hot food is a far-fetched dream. To fill this gap, a marketplace for restaurants was built and then partnered with branded players.
Satish Chamyvelumani, founder and CEO of Frshly says, “Frshly, the automated food unit is operating on an Internet of Things (IoT) platform. This is a new concept, and we are the first ones to come up with this innovation. Frshly is filling a large gap by providing healthy, fresh and hot food, within 90 seconds.”
“We have partnered with branded players that have a good reputation in terms of taste, quality, hygienic food and handling practices. The technology in our systems keeps the food fresh and heats it up before delivering the product to the customers. All one needs to do is pick, pay and eat,” he adds.
“We have received two rounds of funding till date and we have raised five million dollars from the investors till now. This is a new concept and we are the first in the world to come up with this innovation. The business model is profitable, scalable and has a huge market,” says Satish.
Based on what consumers have been ordering and using their prediction algorithm, Frshly provides the product data to the restaurants to prepare a set of dishes just before peak meal times. The food is prepared, hygienically packed, in the specific food-grade 100 per cent biodegradable trays and labelled at the kitchens. The labels log in the name of the food item, price, time of packing and the shelf life of the product which is usually six hours from the time of packaging. The trays are then brought to Frshly outlets and fed into the machine.
The proprietary technology automatically reads the food labels, displays the food item with the price on the machine, and keeps the food fresh. To ensure that the food offered is fresh, once the food reaches its stated shelf life the built-in algorithm automatically removes the item from the menu.
Frshly recently became one of India's first innovative startup to have been recognised by a global platform- Moodie Davitt's FAB Awards 2018, which has awarded Frshly with the 'New Food and Beverage Concept of the Year' title. The startup has been awarded for its innovative tech outlet deployed at the Chennai airport.
His advice to start-up aspirants: “Never give-up is what I advice the start-up aspirants. One needs to go ahead with his idea and find a way to implement it.”