Founded two years ago by Tapan Das and Ryan Fernando, iTiffin is a food startup that provides healthy and calorie-defined food for all age groups. It has a team of around 100 individuals that include food and nutrition scientists and proficient chefs who can produce 20,000 meals a day.
iTiffin’s formation has an interesting story behind it. Das and Fernando used to run Qua Nutrition, a consultancy firm dealing in nutrition and were approached by cricketer Robin Uthappa who was having trouble in following up with a healthy diet. The duo’s advice helped him and he decided to act as an investor and gave seed money worth Rs. 1.5 crore to start iTiffin.
“We blend advanced nutrition, food science and food service to offer everything from wellness-inducing to calorie-defined meals, as per the diner’s preference,” says Das, Co-founder and CEO.
iTiffin follows a subscription-based business model. Users can order food via the company’s website or mobile with around 80% of the traffic coming from the website. The company does not allow you to order just a single meal and encourages users to choose a plan and stick to it.
“Healthy food is not a one-off thing, you need to make it a part of your lifestyle,” says Fernando, Co-founder and Director.
iTiffin is planning to expand its reach from Bangalore to a pan-India presence. According to Das, the company is aiming at starting his operations in Delhi by end-July. In the first year of operations, iTiffin served more than a lakh meals. Moreover, the company pays attention to the suggestions from the customer end as well. On the advice of a user, the company came up with i-Atta – a better choice for diabetes patients than ordinary flour.
Currently, iTiffin is enjoying no competition from the domestic front. By acquiring customers and having a strong foothold in food preparation and delivery in the dietary culinary segment, iTiffin surely has an edge over potential future startups of similar nature.
