Introduction and Interview by Anupama Krishnakumar
[box]Bhojan! The name itself is so inviting. When I close my eyes and think of it, all I can imagine is a sumptuous meal, very Indian and tastefully and cleanly prepared! And if you are an Indian living in the U.S., close your eyes and think of this name, doesn’t it sound all the more mouth-watering?[/box]Bhojan! The name itself is so inviting. When I close my eyes and think of it, all I can imagine is a sumptuous meal, very Indian and tastefully and cleanly prepared! And if you are an Indian living in the U.S., close your eyes and think of this name, doesn’t it sound all the more mouth-watering?
What really appeals to me about Bhojan is the line, ‘Passion for Cooking.’ I can’t help but smile at the word, ‘Passion’. And when Swetha Parthasarathy, one of the founders of Bhojan says, “I find myself spending a good amount of time on Bhojan and probably the thing that takes a back seat is my part-time IT job – this is perhaps in line with where my interests lie now :)!” I smile too at the joy that only a passionate venture can evoke.
And if you are wondering what creativity has to do with food and what it means to run a venture driven by passion for cooking, just go ahead and catch this interview with Swetha Parthasarathy, a software professional and a foodie who discovered her passion for cooking and Tarandeep Narula, who realized that she actually loved cooking, one year into marriage. Bhojan provides its services in and around Stamford, CT.
Tell us a bit about how Bhojan came about?
Sweta: I have always been a foodie. While I enjoyed cooking and eating, an idea to do something in food catering first struck me during a
Swetha and Taran of Bhojan
trip to London in 2003. As part of my sightseeing trip, just opposite BigBen was this amazing crepe food cart with incredibly long lines… that led me wondering about a Indian Dosa food cart! When I moved to a rather remote Whitefield office in Bangalore in 2004, and started having office catered food for lack of outside options (not that good tasting, extremely unhealthy and overpriced), my little idea in London turned into a bigger conviction. Add to that, the desire to provide good tasting, healthy and reasonably priced food.
That idea was always sidelined, particularly with my IT career, marriage and our move to the U.S. Over 2009 and 2010, I started feeling extremely bored in IT and realized I was not enjoying it as much as I did when I joined the field eight years ago – that is when I decided to pursue Bhojan! Taran was a close friend and she shared the same passion for cooking – I approached her with the idea in August 2010, she agreed and it took us around three weeks to do some basic market research, close on a name, identify our services, get our marketing material in place and start spreading the word!
Yummy name indeed! Whose idea was it?
Sweta: Both Taran and I were very insistent on using an Indian name and ‘Bhojanam’ was one of the names provided by my grandmother. Among quite a few names that we were reviewing, we liked this the most – it was simple, to the point, had good recall value and stood for the home cooked food that we were going to serve! We took the name and shortened it to Bhojan!
Taran : We really liked this name because it meant simple homemade food.
What does creativity mean in the context of food? Which areas exactly do you put your creative instincts to work as far as cooking is concerned?
Sweta: I think we apply creativity to all aspects of our food making process, right from preparation to selling! A little variation in ingredients produces such variety and of course, better taste! In a boring dish, slicing vegetables in a different style makes the dish more appealing! Providing a nice creative name to regular dishes makes it more attractive to buy!
Some specific examples of creativity in our experience with Bhojan:
a) We have come up with our own dish which has combined two varied styles of cooking. One of the most popular appetizers that we cater is ‘Mini Masala Idli’ which is our own creation!
b) We have often come up with creative ideas to celebrate festive occasions! For Indian Independence day, we celebrated that by making tri-coloured rice.
Taran: Cooking is all about creativity, A little bit of this and a little bit of that “masala” makes all the difference. It is so amazing that how with one vegetable, there can be lot of alterations. Swetha and I belong to two different cultures and it amazes me as to how we can offer different tastes to the same veggie! It’s all about making variety.
Tri-coloured Rice that Bhojan prepared for Independence Day
What about presentation? How important do you think it is, in a food catering business?
Sweta: Presentation is half the battle in selling food. Once people like what we present, it automatically creates a desire to eat! For example, we changed our lunch boxes to more compact ones – we got great feedback and it actually increased our sales! A part of our lunch, we used to serve pickle in a foil. We brought in a cute ‘dabba’ within the lunch box to serve pickle which has made our lunch more presentable now! Presentation becomes extremely important when we are catering for parties as the food needs to blend well with the theme of the party!
Mini Masala Idli - Bhojan's own creation
What do you guys do to differentiate yourself from other such similar services? Your USP?
Our USP is that we offer healthy food which is home-made, free of preservatives – we want to be a service that offers food you can eat everyday as if you were eating at home! We have our share of Friday indulgence through our fun-themed meals!
How do you guys work on the pricing? Is it quite a tough task?
Sweta: We use two inputs for pricing:
a) Cost of making something (including ingredients, gas, our effort etc)
b) Market rate
Using this, and taking into account our differentiators, we price our services. It is not all science and a good amount of gut feel goes into it too! As you said, it is a tough task and pricing is something that we are constantly learning and refining with our experience!
Future plans?
Sweta: A food cart is something that I have always wanted to open and maybe something on the horizon in the medium term! In the longer run, we would like this to be a store than just a home- run establishment!
Pics Courtesy : Bhojan
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