Celebrity chef Sanjeev Kapoor and
hospitality business expert Ravi Saxena, who promote kitchen appliances firm
Wonderchef, said they will invest up to USD 2 million for an undisclosed stake
in ZuperMeal, online marketplace for home cooked meals. They have joined hands
with two international partners to invest in the two-month-old Mumbai-based
startup.
A very interesting area according
to chef Sanjeev Kapoor is the opportunity to boost food processing at the
household level through ZuperMeal. Prior to Wonderchef, Ravi Saxena has built
companies like Sodexo, Gloria Jean’s Coffee and Yellow Chilli Restaurant
Franchise.
“Funds would be utilised to
upgrade our technology, expand the zuper-hub network, add talent to the team
and create brand awareness” ZuperMeal’s co-founder Pallavi Saxena said. ZuperMeal
aims to reach sales of Rs. 4,500 crore across 500 towns with 60,000 home chefs
by 2020, she said.
Currently, ZuperMeal has 150
homemakers registered on the platform and dishes out an average of 60 to 70
meals a day, earning a net margin of 15 per cent.
Eating out is a growing pie, but
is expensive owing to the brick and mortar infrastructure of the restaurant,
rising rentals and increasing service tax and value added taxes constituting
over 20 per cent of the food bill, she pointed out.
“We will look at carving out a
significant market share of this pie. The differentiator would be our cutting
edge technology both for consumer interface as well as the management of
logistics,” Balasubramanian A, chief operating officer ZuperMeal said.
source: thehindu