Cook'dIN launches portal for home-cooked meals

Ahmedabad-based start-up Cook'dIN has launched an online convergence platform for healthy home-cooked meals. An aggregator of home-based cooks such as housewives and cooking enthusiasts, Cook'dIN, through its platform www.cookedin.com, connects consumers seeking an alternative to 'mass cooked' meals' to home-cooked meals.

While the services have been launched in Ahmedabad, the startup is planning to expand the same rapidly to other key urban centres of Gujarat such as Vadodara, Surat and Rajkot, among others.

"We have conceived Cook'dIN as a catalyst, a facilitator that creates a primary/secondary revenue stream for homemakers and low to median income groups by catering to the need of consumers for home-cooked food. The business model of Cook'dIN is set to revolutionise the food service market in India and create a completely new and burgeoning segment," said Abhijeet Goswami, Co-Founder, Cook'dIN.

As per Cook'dIN, the total size of Indian foodservice market is expected to be Rs 65,000 crore ($10 billion), whereas the food delivery market in India is pegged at an approximate Rs 16,250 crore ($2.5 billion), out of which the unorganised home cooking and delivery market stands at Rs 9,800 crore ($1.5 billion).

According to Goswami, given the rise of people migrating from different states and nations, consumers are increasingly seeking out for authentic dishes which are otherwise getting lost. "As a home cook aggregator, Cook'dIN could also help home-cooks to earn their first or additional income," he added.

Charging a transaction fee from home cooks, Cook'dIN has tied up with logistics provider for handling delivery for home-cooked food. Already, the platform has seen registration from 20-odd home cooks, with 80 per cent of them being women. With already 12 different cuisines on its platform, Cook'dIN is in talks with Japanese and Korean cooks, among others to add continental cuisines.

"To start with we are eyeing a potential customer base of 440,000 households out of 1.1 million households in Ahmedabad city. Home Chefs who are registered on Cook'dIN have a huge marketplace to cater to and as there are not many restrictions on the Home Chefs they continue to remain their own bosses," said Goswami.