“Start it first and everything will follow”, says Aruj Garg, CEO aka Chief Bhukkad and founder at Bhukkad. In an exclusive interview with Ashutosh Ranjan and Ragavendra Prasath of iSPIRT, Aruj shares how he identified the unhealthy junk food problem and created natural fast food chain. Here are the edited excerpts from the interview.
Q. What was your eureka moment to come out with Bhukkad? How do you evaluate your idea?
A. First Bhukkad started as there were very few good food options in and around college for food. During my college years, I ran Bhukkad like that. Post that, in 2013, when I graduated, I found that I had a high cholesterol problem and I couldn’t find places to eat. Whatever options were available, were very expensive and were available in a very formal niche environment. Hence the new bhukkad version was born to make food which is fast and also good for the consumers.
Q. How do you select menu or items to be served through Bhukkad?
A. We have our food philosophy how we want to do it. Whatever food items fits this food philosophy we will do it. We follow natural fast food philosophy which basically means that whatever we serve is actually made up of natural sources as much as possible. Making food from natural sources is very challenging because raw materials are not available or it is too costly.
So, there are two things we focus on:
- How we can make a product in natural way
- In our operation how premium quality and food safety is ensured.
Q. What are the other new varieties of food items when can expect from Bhukkad? Apart from Sandwiches, salads, burgers, beverages, sweet treats.
A. We recently launched the Main course meals. The idea is that how you create hot and natural main course meals with same kind of philosophy and enthusiasm. We are getting some good feedback on it. We are improving it every day. Whenever we get any feedback we try to incorporate and improve it further.Are you a still a bootstrapped or funded startup? Currently, how big is your team? What are your plans to scale it up?
Q. Are you a still a bootstrapped or funded startup? Currently, how big is your team? What are your plans to scale it up?
A. We are funded startup. We are looking for more funds to expand our business in other parts of Bangalore then to other cities as well. We are about 35 people now. This involves people in different area of operations including senior team as well. Delivery is not run by us, it is outsourced to different logistic partner.
Our presence is mostly in the south side of Bangalore. However we are planning to cover rest of Bangalore pretty soon.
Q. Start up is a lot about sacrifice. So what about your family and hobbies?
A. There is nothing called work life balance and its fine. Work is equivalent to life and that is what is happening. These are no efforts to make balance right now because this is what I have and I will continue to do it for long time. My parents live in Mumbai and I live in Bangalore. They are very supportive of everything.
Q. What are the key milestones for the 6 – 12 months for the company to be achieved?
A. In next 6 months we have to be serving more parts of Bangalore, also make sure that we are consistence, keep pushing our agenda how food should be to more people, make more people try our food and make them understand what we do in good and effective way.
Q. What are the potential challenges you expect?
A. For us one of the biggest roadblocks is that to communicate what we do in effective manner to masses. It is a big challenge for us. Second important thing is that we always have enough capital to grow and use that capital effectively and judiciously. Third is to make sure business runs smoothly because there are so many moving parts in this business. I think last challenge is to figure out a way to use more technologies and make it more data oriented than what are we right now.
Q. Finally, what is your vision for Bhukkad?
A. I want to Bhukkad to become the McDonalds of natural fast food.