Jolly Food Fellows cook up videos that entice viewers to dine

Getting the closest look possible without really tasting food is only possible with a video of the item being made. Niraj Harlalka realised that there were no options for consumers to find food of their tastes and preferences. According to him, " Images were only partially able to give a representation, and so, the idea of food videos was born. No one was doing it for thousands of food outlets. We wanted to exploit this void and give the outlet the option to showcase #yahanacchakyamiltahai at their outlet. This helped consumers view the videos on our platform and other third party platforms, including Facebook, and decide to go for it or note it for later.”

Niraj co-founded Jolly Food Fellow with Rajiv Sharma in August 2015.

Rajiv has done his masters from IIT Kanpur and MBA from Great Lakes, Chennai. He has a chain of cafes by the name of Joules, which he has been managing successfully for the last six years. He had earlier worked in companies like L&T and Tata Communications. Rajiv has the requisite expertise in the area of food and retail. Jolly Food Fellow is his brain child, and his skills in areas of food and analytics form the core of the business.

40-year-old Niraj himself has 20 years of work experience. He had worked in the IT sector before this, in an education group, and developed an educational ERP and other education IT products with a team of domain experts in the sector. He has also worked in the retail segment and in distribution.

Jolly Food Fellow comprises a 25 member-strong team today.

Core product

Jolly Food Fellow helps consumers discover the latest food trends in the form of food videos. It shares consumer insights with food merchants to increase their business. Consumers engage with the platform for videos, information, cashbacks, coupons, delivery and feedback. Food merchants pay for various services the platform provides, including analytics and video making and promotions.

Rajiv explains, "We are in a niche segment and have a first mover advantage. We not only promote and market content, but also create and distribute it. We are able to recover the costs of content creation, distribution and promotion from our merchant partners. We have a deep understanding of technology and content. Our platform is available on web, Android and iOS, and we have created over 350 videos, with over 833 hours of content. "

Use case

A merchant, Chik and Grill in Ahmedabad, for whom the company created a video of the item chicken shawarma, told them that after the video release, a lot of customers, especially new ones, asked for the dish.

Market size

The advertisement market in India is currently worth over Rs 15,000 crore, and is expected to grow to Rs 32,000 crore by 2022. The food restaurant content and promotion market, meanwhile, is pegged at Rs 4,300 crore.

Their business model is advertisement-based, and they also charge for the various services they provide merchant partners.. FMCG and food outlets are an advertiser segment for the venture. Its videos have already reached out to over 10 million users, generating a good deal of advertisement revenue.

The company's revenue has been growing at a rate of 100 percent month-on-month for the last three months. It is hoping to have an average MoM growth of over 25 percent in the next 12 months.

Jolly Food Fellow has raised funds from a couple of angels.