Many people often think that there is such a machine that can make all kinds of dishes in a jiffy. Especially, people who do not have much time. Or the youth living in other countries in connection with studies and jobs, who do not get Indian food easily. Acting on this idea, a Bengaluru-based startup is not only making ready-to-cook products for some of the popular cuisines, but has also developed a ‘Plug and Play’ device. In this device you only need to put the ingredients of these Ready to Cook products and it will allow you to cook the dishes the traditional way.
It may sound strange to you, but it is true. Bangalore-based Rakaka Food Technologies has developed this unique device, which works in an automated mode. In the year 2018, Jayakrishnan Ganesan founded this startup with his father R. K. Started with Ganesan. While talking to The Better India, he spoke about his journey.
Idea came while studying in Sweden
Jayakrishnan has studied Mechanical Engineering. In 2014, he went to Sweden for a master’s degree. He did his Masters from Linköping University, Sweden. In Sweden, he had a lot of problem with Indian food. He told that Indian dishes were available in Sweden, but their taste is according to the European people. Because of this, he got into trouble many times.
Jayakrishnan says, “I discussed this with my friends and acquaintances. Somebody gave the idea that a robot should be made for cooking, then someone said that some device to make gravy. But eventually I learned cooking myself. But from there it came to mind that something should be done to solve this shortcoming.”
In the year 2017, Jayakrishnan returned to India and started working with a foodtech startup. But his entire focus was on how he could make cooking easy and take it to the global level. He said, “After a lot of research, I understood that the preparation of any dish takes the most effort and time. It takes a long time to collect all its ingredients. For example, to make pasta, you need many different things and you have to buy them in large quantities. You can’t just buy as many things as your dish will require. At first I thought of working on it.”
Jayakrishnan shared this idea with his father. His father, R. K Ganesan is an Electrical Engineer with over 40 years of industrial experience. He says that in the year 2018, both of them together laid the foundation of ‘Rakaka Food Technologies’. First he worked on ‘Ready to Cook’ products. They have prepared mixes according to about 200+ recipes from different countries. You can cook them in the normal way if you want. All the ingredients in these products are kept in the quantity as required. That’s why they taste great too.
Venkatesh, who has tried these products of his, says that it does not take much effort nor time to cook these products. Also, there is no change in taste either. Hence, apart from being easy to make, they are also delicious to eat.
Created a ‘plug and play device’
They have prepared products and recipes and also took their trials. But at the same time, Jayakrishnan also wanted to create a device in which only people had to keep this material and do the rest of the work themselves. Acting on this idea, he has modeled his first ‘plug and play’ device a while back.
“We got its inspiration from the VCD player. Like in VCD player you have to put CD and you can listen to any country song. That’s how we made this device, in which you just have to keep these ready-to-cook products and after some time you will get the finished dish,” he said.
To create this device, Jayakrishnan has used technologies like Artificial Intelligence (AI) and cloud computing. He told that in this you have to select the dish and keep its contents. This device will prepare the dish using the ingredients according to the recipes already uploaded in the cloud server. In this way you can cook any dish. Rakaka Food Technologies has also got a patent for this technology. By October 2021, this device of his will be ready for launch in the market.
Says Jayakrishnan, “Initially we started with our savings. But after about six-seven months, when we started working on our device, we got funding of Rs 1.5 crore from three angel investors. Chandrashekhar ji, who is a Chartered Accountant by profession, has also been instrumental in taking our startup forward. At present, our ready-to-cook products and devices are modeled. Soon we will make this device available to the people.”
Jayakrishnan will work on a subscription model to take his device to the masses. He says that this device will be rented to the people along with ready-to-cook products. If someone subscribes for ten products, then they will have to pay 2.5 thousand rupees and those who subscribe for 25 products will have to pay four thousand rupees. Their effort is to market their devices and products to people who are studying or starting jobs and living away from their homes. With the help of this device you can make Biryani, Aloo Posto, Matar Paneer, Mutton Rogan Josh, Chettinad Chicken, Tirunelveli Sodhi Koozhambu, Gujarati Kadhi, Amritsari Paneer etc.
If you want to know more about this device or want to pre-book then you can email them at [email protected]
Editing – G N Jha
Also read: Drone ‘Vibhram’ of IIT Kanpur wins three awards in international competition
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