This husband-wife duo are building a food metaverse to bring the global F&B industry to the blockchain

Supreet Raju and Gaurav Gupta have been exploring the blockchain industry since 2017. Supreet has expertise in design and teaches it as well, so one of her fortes has been leveraging good design to fuel blockchain adoption. 

“As NFTs started becoming popular from January 2021, I felt a creative spark in Web3 for the first time – and it gave us an interesting opportunity to see if Gaurav's marketing skills can combine with my creative vision. We brainstormed and food was one of the first ideas we landed on," Supreet tells The Decrypting Story. 

She adds, "We love to travel and food has been a large part of our travel memories. Food has no language; it's comforting for everyone across the world – and this simplistic theme offered us a great contrast to the daunting tech angle of blockchain. We thought – ‘how cool would it be to be the sole owner of French Fries in the world?!’ - that was it,”

This gave birth to OneRare – a food metaverse, aka, ‘Foodverse’. Supreet explains the startup celebrates food from across the world by bringing the global F&B industry onto the blockchain.

OneRare aims to enable celebrity chefs, restaurants, and food brands to create virtual food experiences, signature dish NFTs, and interact with global audiences. 

What does it do?

OneRare has two aspects – the gaming layer and Foodverse. The gaming layer will feature dishes from across the world as exclusive NFTs. In Foodverse, players can traverse through four areas: farm, farmer's market, kitchen, and playground – where they can collect ingredients, trade them in the marketplace, cook up dishes and claim NFTs, and play mini-games. 

The Foodverse will feature chefs, restaurants, food brands, and food-related businesses in a virtual experience where F&B brands can create their first metaverse entity, sell NFTs, take online orders, and explore Web3. For users, this will be an immersive experience where they can hang with friends and family, discover new foods, play games, and eventually, swap their NFTs for real meals.  

The product is being built on the Polygon chain, and the startup is currently in the testing phase.

Adding the gaming layer 

“We are creating a unique gaming layer that allows users to claim NFTs, play food-themed games, and discover new products along the way,” she says. 

COVID-19 changed everything for the food and hospitality industry. The lockdowns led to lowered spending by customers and also affected supply chains, due to which many restaurants had to shut down. The arose the need for restaurants to directly reach their customers.

Surpreet adds the team is building ways for the industry to leverage blockchain technology and develop a direct relationship with their audience by cutting out Web2 intermediaries. 

“Patrons can support their favourite restaurants in the same way we support our favourite influencers. Businesses can also discover new markets. The biggest challenge in building OneRare is the technology we are using – blockchain. Being a fairly new technology, there is a lack of talent in the industry and it has been an arduous process to put our team together. We are not limited by geographical limitations and that, thankfully, allowed us to hire more suitable talent than localised options. My founder is also my husband and while we are based in Delhi, our team is 100 percent global,” says Supreet. 

The team has been building a small NFT game where you can claim dish NFTs from across the world. 

“We got a phenomenal response from both the F&B as well as the blockchain industries, which allowed us to make strategic partnerships and raise investment. We expanded to bring chefs and restaurants onboard, helping them take their first steps into Web3. Over time, the game has now evolved into the world's first food metaverse, aka Foodverse,” she adds. 

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Building on Polygon 

Being a digital product, Supreet says there are no fixed costs. The costs would depend on the technical proficiency of hires, and their understanding of the blockchain. 

“Costs also depend on the tech decisions you make – for example, as a project, we made an executive decision to build on Polygon as they offer much lower gas fees as compared to Ethereum. So, building on Polygon reduces our long-term costs, and also reduces the cost burden for our users when they transact in the Foodverse,” says Supreet.  

As the tech grows, OneRare says it strives to expand the team’s scope and timeline while building the virtual Foodverse. 

Market and future 

OneRare is building in the emerging and rapidly expanding Indian NFT market featuring other startups like Rario, GuardianLink, Vibranium, Ikonz, Colexion, BeyondLife, WazirX NFT Marketplace, etc. 

While some of these startups are building marketplaces for users to buy and trade NFTs, others are partnering with celebs to mint NFTs, and some are also working with large brands to protect their IPs amid the NFT mania.

Speaking of their future plans, Supreet says, 

“Our gaming layer will be live in one month’s time. We have already onboarded several renowned chefs and we will be ramping up these efforts post-launch. We aim to bring the best of the food industry to the Foodverse – from chefs and restaurants to food brands and food-related professionals. As we go along, we want to focus on creating the biggest food metaverse in the world, bringing next-generation shared experiences to users, and building on Web3 technology to elevate the food industry.”