Flavour Labs: Why the boutique food & hospitality company is betting on food trucks
Those of us who ever lived in a small
town will remember the sonorous sound of metal ladle striking iron
skillet of the local tikki-wallah trying to attract customers. Or the
melodious tinkle of the ice-cream cart bell or the chuski-seller's
raucous cry calling out to buy his wares.
Street food has always been a part of
our culture – even more so in smaller towns like Ahmedabad Bhopal,
Lucknow and Indore, where entire markets transform nightly into
charming food bazaars and feasts. Even a megapolis like Mumbai has
bhelpuri stalls mushrooming on Chowpatty.
The equivalent of this in western
societies is the food truck – defined as a large vehicle equipped
to cook and sell food - though a more contemporary definition would
be a mobile restaurant or canteen.
Although food trucks began as a need –
a Texan rancher devised the chuckwagon for his cattleherders for
their long cross-country trails – they have become a gourmet
addition to streetfood staples. And now they are becoming an
important part of the Indian landscape, at a time when innovative
concepts in food and dining are disrupting traditional markets.
From pop-up restaurants, standalone
palate-centric food festivals, chai bars and artisan beer pubs to
experimental molecular cuisine, there is a quiet revolution sweeping
the country. So it isn't as if Nandita Shetty, Rohan Rajgarhia, Ankur
Agarwal and Vasanth Kamath are doing anything that hasn't been done
before. Its just that they are doing it differently.
The four engineers founded Flavour Labs
as a boutique food and hospitality company, but their focus is food
trucks - designed and custom-fitted with state-of-art stainless steel
kitchen equipment.
“Building
the food truck was a huge challenge in functionality, practicality
compliance and safety needs,” says Shetty.
It was she who concieved the idea of a
food truck during Stanford Ignite, a certificate programme in
innovation and entrepreneurship offered by the Stanford Graduate
School of Business School in Bangalore in 2013. “Food is a
passion,” says Shetty.
Her background is in healthcare,
although she started out as a software engineer in Bangalore. After a
post-graduate degree in biomedical engineering, she worked as a
neuroimaging researcher at the Massachusetts General Hospital in
Boston before moving back to India. But it was volunteering with a
non-profit, Pardada Pardadi Educational society, in rural Uttar
Pradesh that was life-altering.
In 2012, Shetty joined a biotech startup as as business
development manager. “At
Invictus Oncology, I really enjoyed working in a non-scientific role,
and being part of a team that was translating a medical break-through
into a usable product. But when the opportunity (at Ignite) came up,
I was ready for it. And I'm so glad with the way things panned out.
The best part is that two of Flavour Lab's co-founders are people I
met at the program: Rohan Rajgarhia, a Stanford alumnus, who was a
mentor on our team project, and Vasanth Kamath, a team member at the
program,” says Shetty.
The
company's first investment was in a food truck which served a very
unique cuisine. “Kobri – which means dessicated coconut - takes
its inspiration from South Indian cuisine and fuses it with global
flavours,” says Shetty. According to their website, Kobri “
brings to you where you are...a 'food truck' fun-dining experience,”
with introductory signature dishes like idliwiches (idli sandwiches)
and dosa wraps. The same truck can transforms to another avatar –
Hoppers, for casual comfort food. “We can dress up the truck any
way we want!” says Shetty.
“Apart
from regular lunch services, we do private, corporate, sporting
events and festive celebrations – you name it,” says Shetty.“This
is not a hobby or a pet project. We mean business.” Some of their
events include the Puma Urban Stampede, SERCO trail-a-thon, services
at the Heritage Transport museum, business parks and residential
complexes.
Currently,
the food truck is doing roaring business by just word of mouth. Last
week, they launched their Facebook page and have planned a public
portal.“We are figuring out how to make use of technology in this
space,” she says. “Once we get the food right, the process right
and build a trusted brand, we will market aggressively,” she said.
The
team's idea was to start small and evaluate the market response
before investing further.“This was our pilot. Gurgaon was a good
place to begin our experiment – our customers understand us. There
was a young, fun aspect to it that worked well here,” says Shetty.
“We are ready for bigger and better now – we plan to saturate
Delhi-NCR first, with 4-5 trucks,” she said. They already have a
base-kitchen located out of Gurgaon that can service upto 3 food
trucks and are looking for funding in order to scale. The company is
close to finalising with an angel group but being “a bit picky. We
don't want just money. We want skillsets...associate with the right
people,” Shetty said. “After scaling, franchising the brand will
be the way to go.”
“Our food is simple but elevated. Our differentiator - hygienic, gourmet food at an affordable price. We remove the location aspect to food, but want to maintain high standards of quality and consistency,” she says. All the right noises there. But food is a tricky, demanding business. And the lack of clear guidelines, laws and licensing rules for such moving kitchens keeps it even more challenging and edgy. Hopefully, a founding team that comprises engineers with backgrounds in hospitality, healthcare, corporate strategy, analytics, customer service - and affiliations with Stanford, Cambridge, Harvard and IIT will be able to overcome the difficulties that such ventures usually face.
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