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Setting up a food business is not an easy task as it comes with a host of unique challenges such as identifying the appropriate business concept, finding the right licensing model, and getting the location, workforce, and menu right. Even after the business is up and running, it takes time, effort, and money to nurture and sustain it. 

To make the entire process of setting up a food business hassle-free and help young foodpreneurs find their feet in the food industry, Krunal Oza launched Hustlers Hospitality in 2020. 

“There is widespread growth in the food and beverage industry but the youth are yet to comprehend its potential,” says Krunal, who has an experience of around eight years in the F&B industry and the marketing domain. 

This is where Hustlers Hospitality steps in with three services—end-to-end consulting, an accelerator programme, and a growth-hack model—for foodpreneurs, cloud kitchens, and quick service restaurant (QSR) brands.

Consulting 

The startup provides end-to-end consulting support to aspiring, young foodpreneurs on core aspects such as kitchen setup, licensing, marketing, brand design, packaging, printing, and franchising. It also helps foodpreneurs with standard operating procedures for recipes, so that a particular food item has the same taste every time an order is placed, across kitchens.

The company has offered consulting services to 500 brands and foodpreneurs so far. 

Growth hack 

Apart from being a consultant, Hustlers Hospitality also operates as a multi-cuisine, multi-brand cloud kitchen. It has 36 cloud kitchen brands under its umbrella, which are offered as franchise to restaurateurs, foodpreneurs, and anyone who wants to get into the food business and sell through aggregator platforms such as Zomato and Swiggy. 

The company partners with restaurateurs and provides them access to standard cloud kitchens that meet food safety and hygiene norms, along with the requisite backend, raw materials, and labour. It also offers digital marketing assistance to restaurateurs and helps them get on board delivery platforms like Zomato, Swiggy, and Dunzo. 

Hustlers Hospitality also works with people who own cloud kitchens and wish to earn incremental sales and additional profit from existing real estate, kitchen equipment, and labour.  

“We have a model where restaurants can scale their online food delivery sales through our already existing kitchen space. This is going to solve the problem for the industry where restaurants open with high hopes and customers do not accept them the way it was anticipated. It also helps optimise the same set of equipment and staff and ensure they are not under-utilised,” says Krunal. 

The startup operates over 36 brands of cloud kitchens and has tied up with more than 700 internet restaurateurs. Some of the cloud kitchen brands it owns are Popstar Pizza, Chop-Chop Square, MithiBai VadaPav, Aflatoon Biryani, Dildar Paratha, United Khichdi, Subramanium, Your Office Canteen, Hola Hola Waffle, LA Churros, and Happy Cow.

Recently, the company acquired a 31% stake in My Cloud Kitchen, a cloud kitchen consulting firm. My Cloud Kitchen owns delivery brands such as Monk Momo, New York Sandwich, Senorita Margarita, Pancake Station, and Omg Churros. 

Hustlers Hospitality has cloud kitchens in 40 locations in Mumbai, Pune, Bangalore, Delhi, Hyderabad, Surat, Ahmedabad, Ludhiana, Chandigarh, Patna and Darbhanga.

Accelerator 

This service is designed to help food brands scale up nationwide. For instance, if someone has a cloud kitchen in only one location, they can tie up with Hustlers’ kitchens across the country and become a Hustlers Hospitality franchisee across locations. 

The startup claims to have helped brands that were doing 200 orders from one kitchen to now service over 4,000 orders from 20-plus kitchens. 

Revenue growth

The company charges a one-time fee of Rs 1.5 lakh to Rs 4 lakh for consultation and franchise services, depending on the scope of the work. It generated a revenue of Rs 9 crore last year. The startup says its revenue has grown 16x in the last 14 months. While consulting accounts for 50% of its revenue, franchising royalties and the growth hack model account for the remaining. 

Market potential 

Currently, India is home to over 3,500 cloud kitchens. According to RedSeer Management Consulting, the Indian cloud kitchen industry is expected to be worth $2 billion by 2024, up from $400 million in 2019. The market is expected to see a 5X growth in gross merchandise value to $2 billion-$3 billion by 2025.

Hustlers Hospitality competes with brands such as Ghost Kitchen, K Hospitality, and Tasanaya Hospitality in India.

Way ahead

Recently, the startup raised Rs 7 crore in Seed funding from a Mumbai-based investment company Falisha Technoworld. It is in talks with prospective investors to raise Series A funding by early 2023. It plans to go international and set up cloud kitchens in Dubai. 

Hustlers Hospitality will also launch its ice cream brand ‘Just Baked’ by the end of this year. 

By the end of 2023, the company hopes to have grown by more than 150%, with a revenue of over Rs 15 crore and around 35,000 monthly orders via cloud kitchens. 

Krunal says the name ‘Hustlers’ signifies the company’s commitment to hustle in every aspect to help kitchens grow and sustain themselves.