Bengaluru-based Tandurust brings nutrition measured and calorie counted meals to your doorstep

Founded in December, 2014, by two young fitness enthusiasts Pushpesh Dutt and Sudhanshu Sharma, Tandurust delivers nutrition measured and calorie counted meals to diverse groups of healthy eaters in Bangalore.

The duo believes that a felicitous life can be enjoyed by a person who has a healthy mind and body. Together they performed some pilots amongst their colleagues and friends, and finally launched the beta version of Tandurust.

Before starting Tandurust, Sudhanshu had co-founded an agri-commodities export startup. Prior to that, he was working as a business analyst with Mphasis. And Pushpesh was working as an equity research analyst with HSBC prior to this venture.

With the idea of providing healthy meals for breakfast, lunch, and snacks, Pushpesh developed a number of recipes over a period of six months to kick off the venture under the brand ‘TANDURUST’.

Pushpesh says,

The right nutrition has to be integrated into a lifestyle to have the maximum benefit. I gained enough knowledge about nutrition, and through a well-balanced diet and focused workout, lost 12 kilos in three months.

Both Sudhanshu and Pushpesh have invested Rs. 13 lakhs from their personal resources, and friends and family.

Gaining traction

Tandurust strives to provide customers four of the daily six meals. It now delivers around 170-180 meals a day. The customer base includes reputed organisations like HSBC, Goldman Sachs, Cisco, Narayana Hrudalaya, and so on. The number of repeat subscription orders is around 80 per cent.

Tandurust has delivered around 10,000 plus orders in the first seven months. The food tech startup has a subscription based model where the customer subscribes to weekly or monthly meal (breakfast, lunch and snacks) plans. The cost per meal varies from Rs. 60 to Rs. 120.

According to Sudhanshu, “A healthy diet should comprise of six well balanced meals to keep the metabolism level high. Limiting factors like lack of nutrition knowledge, lack of availability of nutritious food, and time constraints forbid many people to plan their diet. We operate a centralized kitchen and use process documents of recipes to monitor quality and ensure seamless operations.” He also mentions that they have tried various B2B channels to reach out to people such as gym-goers, so that they can find a trusted partner in Tandurust to help them meet their fitness goals.

The food tech startup also disseminates knowledge about nutrition and healthy lifestyles through their Facebook page, website, and activities like quizzes, events, etc.

Pushpesh states,

People spend a lot on unhealthy items such as pizzas, etc. but think twice before paying twenty rupees extra for nutrition measured healthy food. This clearly reflects the fact that very few people actively think about imbibing healthy food habits. We make people realize that by spending a little extra on our daily meals they can avoid contemporary health conditions like obesity, diabetes, heart diseases, and also save much more on future medical expenses.

Food tech industry

The food industry in India is estimated to reach Rs. 18 lakh crores in 2016. Overworked Indians will want to opt for healthy foods but they will want the food to be delivered to their place of work or home. This need creates an opportunity for online food startups.

Moreover, a centralized kitchen set-up is a cost-effective asset model that provides an opportunity to streamline operations and maintain high quality of food.

However, there are some crucial challenges which need to be addressed by the industry: since food products are perishable in nature, the logistics mechanism needs to be super-fast and efficient; somehow e-restaurants are not being able to bring in the disruptive prices that e-commerce was able to achieve, therefore the food tech players face more competition from brick and mortar restaurants; when the number of deliveries per trip is not substantial the delivery cost may become a major overhead cost.

The road ahead

Tandurust plans to open multiple kitchens across Bangalore and other cities; adding two kitchens in 2017 and four in 2018. The target is to achieve 1000 packs delivery per day over the next 12 months.

Sudhanshu adds,

We want to build a transformational enterprise that can inspire and influence people to lead a healthier stress-free lifestyle by providing them well-balanced nutritious eating options. While serving healthy food, we are also spreading awareness about the significance of nutrition.

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