The Delhi food scene is smoking hot with pop-up tea parties, gourmet dinners, world cuisine festivals doing the rounds. Bake Box, a novel concept is gathering pace and fast connecting with Delhiites.
One pays a fixed sum of money for the month’s Bake Box which is full of baked goodies (think cakes, brownies and more). It is hand delivered on a fixed day of the month. The goodies are baked by a particular baker who is called Baker of the Month. A new baker is featured every month. The baker chooses his/her best offerings for the Bake Box. The announcement is made on their Facebook page. The people behind this concept are Jennifer Duthie and Wolf Zech who are partners in the business and Gaurav Chugh helps them in web developing. The trio operates from a home office in Lajpat Nagar.
The beginning
Jennifer is from England and realised that m (mobile)-commerce is an old trend and Facebook, Twitter are almost old. She also saw the rise of subscription commerce and the idea struck. Jennifer who studied business and has in the past worked with Lloyds Banking Group, Microsoft online and Lehman Brothers has a strong business acumen and knows the pulse of her customers. She came together with old pal Zech from Germany (he earlier worked with the European Chamber of Commerce to promote trade between India and European Union) to start Bake Box. The two have a big sweet tooth and Zech recalls starting Bake Box as a “fun project that was meant to scratch your own itch.”
How it works
“Home bakers concentrate on baking and there is less time for marketing. So we decided to be a market aggregator for them in India. We see what kind of work do the bakers do and focus only on serious home bakers and not hobby bakers,” says Jennifer. Product quality is important to them. They first do a taste test and only after that strike a deal. The baker gives them a suitable month, after which they get going. They take orders online and pass them on to the baker who hands over the goods to them on a particular day. “We then take care of the deliveries. We did the first deliveries in August ourselves. We wanted to see how feasible our concept is, and it also gave us a chance to engage with the customers in a brilliant way. It garnered a lot of respect for the brand and we even met people who gave some lovely recommendations. We can plan a bit better now,” says Jennifer.
The response
“Everyone loved the concept. We wrote personalised notes with every box. Our box was a regular box with stickers of the brand. Nothing fancy about it,” says Jennifer. Her eyes light up when she says, “We got appreciation and thank you mails and texts from customers after the August deliveries.”
Zech says, “I have been in India since four years. The jump to entrepreneurship has made the learning curve bigger. I am doing many jobs like sourcing products to sales and marketing. The best thing is you get to see the results yourself. I see India as a dynamic country which has an interesting growth story and I love being a part of it. The surprise element and tasting of new things is taking Bake Box forward.”
Online operations
Gaurav Chugh, 22, the Web Developer of Bake Box found his job through Linked In. “What I love about Bake Box is that it is a start up and the start up culture in India excites me. I get an objective and can work on it in whichever way I like. Currently I am developing an exciting Bake Box App for Androids. Though I am biased towards Indian sweets I am waiting for an egg less Bake Box to be featured,” he says.
The take home and future
Jennifer loves the fact that she has discovered so many home bakers. “I am not going back to a restaurant again. Home bakers are the best, though desserts at Diva are an exception,” she giggles. Zech on the other hand is “enjoying the love and feel of home baked stuff,” something, that he feels is amiss in Germany. They plan to expand to Chennai, Mumbai, Bangalore, Kolkata and Chandigrah. They are considering featuring two bakers every month and will be featuring egg less stuff once in a while. Say Aye!
For more info log into www.bakebox.in