Sneha Arya discovered Blue Apron, when she was studying in the US. She had heard about it on a niche broadcasting medium. The idea is simple: Order high-quality food but cook it yourself. Sounds difficult? Not really. Blue Apron sends consumers all ingredients needed to make a meal in the right proportions. And it also sends step-by-step recipes.

Call this cooking for dummies or, to put it more gently, do-it-yourself (DIY) cooking. And yes, Blue Apron is a $2-billion company.

Arya spoke to her brother in India. Chirag runs an eatery in Mumbai, and he liked the idea. They believed that India had space for a Blue Apron clone, because the only options the urban crowd had were cook for oneself or rely on cooks or eating out or ready-to-eat food. A quick research told them that the urban crowd wanted to cook and get the restaurant experience. This way, iChef was born in 2014. Recently, the company has been plastered across the front pages of a few newspapers after it received an undisclosed round of funding from Springboard Ventures.

Chef is not alone. In an already heated segment, there are now at least three more -Haute Chef, Burgundy Box and Let’s Chef – are battling it out.

Burgundy Box was launched this year by Vivek Singh. They needed to stand out. They roped in Ajay Chopra, Executive Chef, Starwood Hotels & Resorts, as co-founder.

“We were looking to create an experiential brand on the web, which would provide an alternative to the very commoditised and undifferentiated food services,” Singh said.

Each customer pays per meal kit, which includes step-by-step cooking instructions and ingredients.

These companies have standardised the prices. International recipes could be priced differently. The time required to prepare the dishes is also mentioned, helping users pick those dishes matching their time schedule.

“Kits are priced competitively with the market and are often cheaper than a similar meal in a restaurant by at least 20 per cent. All kits are priced between Rs 200 and Rs 300 and serves two,” said Mohit Bhatia, founder, Let’s Chef.

These companies have started to register modest demand. “We get 300 orders from Friday to Sunday and 150 on weekdays,” said Sneha of iChef.

All of these companies are looking at scale but are looking to grow slowly.

Source: Business Standard