StartupStory: #59 Food Ginie – Meet Aditi Agrawal And Her Soul Food Team

Startup Story Pune365

 

Originally from Bareilly, Aditi Agrawal started off as a techie at Infosys before leaving to follow her food dream in Pune. Life in the fast lane left her feeling the dearth of sumptuously healthy daily meals. Wanting to address the problem faced by scores of people working or studying away from home; she co-founded Food Ginie with Arpit Agrawal.

Co-founders Aditi and Arpit Agrawal

Aditi shares that their motto is serving up ‘healthy and affordable daily food’.

Why Food Ginie?

“Having lived away from home for studies and work, Daily Food was one thing that was not up to the mark. We believe this is an indispensable part of daily life and deserves special attention.
Too many individuals have a “Not Sure about tomorrow” lifestyle. So we devised Meal Plans to suit this perfectly with easy cancellation options in case of a change of client plans.”

She offers us an insight into the family business taking us through a day in her life.

“A typical day starts with a cup of tea with my family,” says Aditi. Next up is a swift perusal of the client feedback received the previous day.

Startup Essentials

Started in August 2016, Food Ginie is targeted at people living in the fast track. They price healthy meals made from quality ingredients between Rs. 75 and Rs. 100.
Delivering pure vegetarian North Indian food they ensure subscribers can book, edit or cancel meals online, no questions asked.
Their Central Kitchen is located in Hadapsar with a Retail Outlet at Destination Centre in Magarpatta.

Sizing up the list of orders comes next, for she must assign tasks and address issues before tackling some morning chores.

“I head right off to the central kitchen for a quality check. Once approved, it is time for dispatch and I assign the delivery schedule to the team. Post lunch it’s time for our team huddle.

Orient everyone with the areas that could do with some improvement; we also swiftly recap the previous day’s progress and concerns. Moving on, we tackle menu planning and check the progress on new product development. After this, it is stop, rinse and repeat for the dinner deliveries.”

The Agrawal clan

Introducing us to her core team Aditi reveals that Sarvesh Agrawal the patriarch, is the sole investor who incidentally, also happens to be a passionate cook. Matriarch Neelam Agrawal takes charge with recipe control while Swapnil Agarwal heads market research and branding.

CEO After Hours

Confessing to taking no weekly off, Aditi manages to scoop up a leave in urgent situations.
Weekend getaways take her to Nasik, Dapoli and even Harnai Beach.
She admits to having vacationed in Switzerland and Goa recently.

As a co-founder, a part of Aditi’s duties involve managing the orders, seeing to the customer service and overseeing Food Ginie’s social media presence.

Arpit is in charge of innovation, consistency and expansion

He’s also responsible for stakeholder management in addition to strategizing and process structuring,” quips Aditi.

“We receive orders mainly through our Website, Facebook and Whatsapp, apart from phone calls,” says the entrepreneur who adds that their retail outlet also dishes up a range of tasty sandwiches, beverages and real fruit ice-creams.

Touching upon what sets them apart, the co-founder shares that they prepare their own spices and devise innovative recipes. “We ensure minimal use of oil and spices. What is more is that our menu is planned after a consult with noted Diet Specialist Shikha Gupta. We give a high weightage to seasonal vegetables and routinely conduct a study of calendar events, sports and festivals to plan specials.”

With the ethos of enjoying work to the fullest, Aditi reveals that they refrain from assigning set roles to their team at Food Ginie. “We make the staff choose what they would like to do. Once they’re set with a task, we encourage them to experiment, trying new variations.

This ensures we have a team of experts who are adept at managing every role, not just one!” beams Aditi who is all praise for her team at Food Ginie.

We at Pune365 wish Aditi and Team Food Ginie all success ahead. Bon Apetit Pune !

 

Aditi Balsaver

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