Cook Safari, a ready-to-cook startup is spreading authentic taste of foods in India

"Determination is the key to success" says, Dr Shampa Sahay, Founder of Cook Safari, from Greater Noida, who has taken up new challenges and launched Cook Safari 5 months ago, and now earning over Rs 1 lakh by selling ‘Ready to Prepare Gravy’ packets.

What is ‘Ready to Prepare Gravy’?

Indian traditional cooking is one of the most precious treasure of India, but unfortunately it needs lots of expertise and very long preparation time. Cooksafari has developed “Ready to Prepare Gravy’' packet, which makes traditional cooking easy and now anyone can cook mouth-watering fresh food in very less time.

Cooksafari makes fresh curry, which is prepared with fresh ingredients, without adding any preservative or chemicals. In this gravy fresh protein (paneer/chicken/vegetables/Dal etc) has to be added along with salt (as per taste) and within 7-8 minutes fresh food becomes ready.

In this process no cooking skills are required and the process is absolutely hassle-free. This product simplifies, cumbersome traditional cooking process and saves time and energy. As the process of making food with Cooksafari gravy is very simple and people gets authentic food easily, it encourages habit of home cooking in new generation also.

In an conversation with Times of Startup India, Dr. Shampa says, "Our product is simply a DIY kit (Do It Yourself Kit), where one has to open the packet and cook fresh food on their own without any help or support from others. And the best part is, it can be prepared in quick time."

How Gravy is processed?

Dr. Shampa says, Cooksafari prepares its products in the kitchen, not in the factory and love is their secret ingredients, which she adds in her every product.

Cooksafari team is very particular in selection of their ingredients and they always use high quality raw materials. There is a team of farmers, who cultivate good quality raw materials for their gravy. Once the raw ingredients reach from farm to Cooksafari manufacturing unit, they are processed hygienically with use of RO water in a very clean environment. Products are preserved with Indian natural traditional techniques and no artificial techniques or chemicals are used to enhance the shelf life. Thus, cooksafari curries are as fresh as your homemade meal. Only goal of cooksafari is to serve quality products to their customers. When the product reaches to plate of our customers, they should get feel of home-made food.

Whom are getting benefited?

As the Cooksafari products are fresh and easy to prepare, it is helpful for both house- holds as well as professional kitchen owners.

For House-holds- As Indian cooking needs lot of preparation time and mostly people are working so they hardly get time for cooking. Generally, now a days, due to time constraints people are usually dependent on house helps or outside food. With Cooksafari gravy, people will be able to cook variety of fresh food for themselves. This will become a big ease for working individuals, elderly persons who stay alone or for those who stay alone outside for job.

Now, Cooksafari has launched their products in initially in Delhi NCR region and they have a plan to spread it India as a whole.

For professional Kitchens- People who run professional kitchens like cloud kitchens, food joints, canteens or resorts are highly dependent on skilled man power. This product reduces their dependency and becomes big help for them. Cooksafari has got a big range of products for professional kitchen and they are helping professional kitchens with “No Cook No Chef” model.

The journey of Dr. Shampa, Founder of CookSafari

Dr. Shampa's story started in 2010. She is a microbiologist and has done her PhD from FRI, Dehradun. She was having an established carrier and she was working with a University as asst. Professor. But all of a sudden, a twist came in her life and she had to quit her job due to some severe family problems. Hailing from a family with highly qualified and professionally well-placed people and being highly qualified herself, she could not digest the fact that she would have to stay back home idle. She did not know what to do but was confident that she had to do something new in life. It was real challenging moment for her as she was going through many family responsibilities but had strong determination to do something new in life. She had no clue from where to start. She was a passionate cook and then she thought why not to give cooking classes. It was very difficult for her because switching over her carrier from microbiologist to a cooking tutor was not easy. But she took this decision and started her cooking class. In a span of three and a half years she had 5k+ students.

Looking for new avenues

While giving the cooking lessons she understood that new generation is losing interest in cooking and they are mostly dependent on helps. She realised that less knowledge of cooking and severe time constraint was the main problem that the present generation faces. The area where Shampa used to live was highly populated and so she thought of starting a restaurant. But within a few days she was fed up with the irregularities of cooks and chefs. Here she found the niche area for her start up, she devised the ‘no cook no chef’ model. It was then that she realised if she could come up with a concept where restaurants can run without chefs then it would be a great idea.

In this model, they developed formula by which they could prepare meals for 300 to 400 people without any professional cook or chef within a very short time. She felt that other restaurants too could adopt the same technique. So, she took franchise of two more restaurants.

She got the Best Startup Product of Uttar Pradesh award by UP Government in UPStart Conclave. Recently, her projected has also been supported by central government.

Determination is the key to success

Dr. Shampa was doing an excellent business when Covid pandemic set in from March 2020. The lockdown led to the closure of all the restaurants and she came down to zero. Till then she was doing B2B business and supplying her products to professional kitchens. Covid made her think why not launch products for house- holds, who also needs this. Then she started working for B2C market and launched her products in Delhi -NCR region. Her main target was households where families are dependent on house helps for household chores and cooking.

She launched ready to prepare gravy packets which is very convenient and extremely handy for customers. Cooksafari product is simply a DIY kit (Do It Yourself Kit)…where one has to open the packet and cook fresh food on their own without any help or support from others. And best part it can be done in quick time.

It is Thus, her new journey started in December 2020 and have been doing quite well in the last 5 months. Even the demand of product increased in second phase lockdown.

Business in last 5 months

Cooksafari launched its product in B2C segment in December 2020 in Delhi-NCR region. Product is available online (https://shop.cooksafari.co.in/ ) and also in the selected outlets. Cooksafari has appointed DSA in the Delhi-NCR who are selling products.

Received very good response from the market, and people they have started seen it as a cooking partner in their kitchen work which has significantly reduced their kitchen time/hassle. Sales have been increased month-by-month and also getting huge demand from the neighbouring cities like Chandigarh & Jaipur, says Dr. Shampa.