BENGALURU: While there are many who love to cook, there are several others who see it as a chore. The most painstaking part being the preparation before the actual cooking process starts. Oh, if only the vegetables would could cut themselves up and the spice would fall in right proportions dreams a bachelor as he/she readies self to cook a proper meal, but later settles for instant noodles to avoid the tedious, cleaning, chopping and marinating work.
If your kitchen expeditions sound similar to this one, then one startup in the city has the solution to your woes. Happy Cook, a meal kit startup based out of Bengaluru, sells boxes with the ingredients required to cook that particular dish along with its recipe. Customers can choose what they like to cook from a list of recipes and Happy Cook will deliver their meal kit to your doorstep. The firm was started this year by five friends Athul Uday, a marketing professional, Arjun Venugopal, a data analyst, Midhun Menon, a marketing specialist and Vedika Thakur a consultancy professional . The team had spent six months on research before starting the firm.
They found that 97% of Bengalureans think eating out is unhealthy and have restaurant food because they don’t have a convenient option to cook easily at home. Hence the team decided to make a change by introducing Happy Cook to the market. “We launched this service in May 2016. The process of cooking hasn’t changed much in the last four decades. With mealkits, we’re trying to create a new habit of cooking,” said Athul Uday, cofounder, HappyCook.in. Their target audiences are working women and DINKS(Dual Income, No Kids)- a couple who does not have children and does not invest much time in cooking.
"The Payyoli chicken fry we had ordered from Happy Cook was just impeccable. The chicken was perfectly cleaned and all the ingredients were packed and placed. I am so lazy to do all these precooking activities, hence it saved my time and the final product was finger-licking good,” says Hinal Khemani, a customer. According to the founders, Coorgi mushroom masala, Singapore fried rice, Andhra pepper chicken are the most demanding dishes from their menu. Presently Happy Cook has 50 meal kits o n their website and are planing to introduce a mobile app soon .
Presently the team delivers kits to people staying around six kilometres radius of Bellandur, particularly HSR Layout, Koramangala, Yemlur, Domluru, Indiranagar, Sarjapur Road, Harlur Road, BTM Layout, Madiwala, Kadubeesanahalli, Marthahalli, Bannerghatta Road,JP Nagar and Teachers Colony. They have also plans to expand to various other locations within three months.