'We do not sell food, we sell experiences'

When was the last time you could order in dishes like Poricha Rasam, Pothichoru, Pineapple Kesari, among others, which taste just like how your mum used to make them at home? Probably never.

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Launched in June, Bhookle, a Chennai-based platform, aims to address that, for it delivers over 800 dishes, like Malai Kofta, Irani Mutton Biryani, Litti Chokha, made exclusively by home chefs, thereby offering Chennaiites the opportunity to get home cooked, healthy and unadulterated food.

Speaking to Indulge, Founder and CEO of Bhookle, Arvind Ravichandran says the idea to create Bhookle was conceived when he was looking for his late mother’s recipes.

“My mom's way of expressing love was through food. If she wanted to feel loved or give us love, she cooked her favourite dishes. The dishes she made were not ones one could typically find in a restaurant,” he begins.

“There's so much uniqueness, authenticity and tradition that goes into making food that when the person who makes it is no more, we don't know where to go to get it. There are so many who miss eating home-cooked food. So, the thought was, ‘why don't we offer it to the market?’,” he adds.

Co-founder and Head of Marketing at Bhookle, Uthra Nagaraj, also lost his mother during the pandemic and shares similar views as Arvind. Since the two Chennaiites have been friends for the past 16 years, they teamed up and along with Shamala Raghu (Bhookle’s Co-founder and Head of Food), started the platform.

So far, the team has added 53 home chefs to Bhookle and Arvind explains why the onboarding process has been slow. “We deliberately do not want to flood the market. When we go and bring these chefs on board, we follow a meticulous process, including checking their kitchen, their cooking style, practices and cleanliness. All of our home chefs are FSSAI approved. We do this because we are not selling food, we sell human experiences,” he states.

Ammu Rebecca, a native of Kerala who resides in Chennai is among the earliest home chefs to start selling dishes through the platform. She says that from only being known among friends and family and promoting her dishes through Instagram, she now serves food to several customers a day.

Single mom Sangeetha Iyer from Ambattur says Bhookle enabled her to pour her passion into making food and monetise it. Before getting on board the platform, she “did not know about marketing” and was “catering to customers in and around my neighbourhood.”

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The team that runs Bhookle says it will have between 75 and 80 home chefs in a month’s time and by the end of this quarter, it aims to have about 100 of them on board. Apart from Chennai, Bhookle is looking to tap into other markets, with Bengaluru being the next point for expansion.

Prices of dishes start from INR 75.

Bhookle is available online and on both iOS and Android platforms.