Home Cooked Food at your Doorstep With MealTango

Saket Khanna

Anju Bajaj has been associated with MealTango for a while now. Her belief, that home food is made with pleasant thoughts, love and flavours, drives her to cook for all those who miss the taste and feeling of eating home cooked food. It is this feeling that MealTango tries to satisfy. Started in 2012 by Saket Khanna, this venture has grown and made it possible for several home chefs to get their food across, without having to worry about delivery and investment, focusing primarily on the quality.

As an engineer, Saket Khanna worked and lived abroad for several years but always missed the feeling of having ‘ghar ka khana’. While he was living in London with his wife, they provided their house as a stay for Airbnb. They played hosts to people from different walks of life like lawyers, photographers and film producers. “After playing a host, I thought of a similar concept for food. What if you could go to someone’s house for a great meal and experience?” Khanna also adds that it was difficult for this concept to adapt itself to the Indian market, “People feel shy and it makes them come out of their comfort zones. There’s also the question of safety and security. Many home chefs aren’t comfortable having strangers come to their house. We overcame this by the home delivery option.”

The initial years of MealTango were quite challenging as the concept was very new for people to understand, “We had to persuade people to have home food. At the time, we were a startup and it was really difficult to raise money especially for food startups,” explains Khanna whose first home chef was his neighbour whom he had great difficulty persuading. MealTango lists out several home chefs in the city according to their speciality in cooking different cuisines. The chefs are allowed to price their dishes on their own. Along with this, they also get trained online about how they can improve their presence on the site. “Many women face pressures from their families that restrict them from working or then there are people who don’t have the means to start their own restaurant. In that sense, this venture is great because a home chef doesn’t require any investment. We take care of the marketing and home delivery service,” mentions Khanna.

Using MealTango, one can explore several Indian and continental cuisines, including baked items like breads, cakes, brownies and chocolates. The order can also be customised as per the person’s dietary preferences.

Currently, MealTango is run by Khanna and his ten-member team in full swing. “Our focus is primarily on Pune right now. It isn’t easy to expand to several cities around the country because you need to have a sustainable financial model for that. Many food startups have failed due to this reason; they expanded quickly and went into a loss.”

The future of MealTango is to become a nationwide phenomenon, where home chefs can introduce their native, home cooked cuisines to those who are away from home.

Vijayta Lalwani