PEAKLIFE

A food-tech company, Lokal Kitchen, focuses on marketing, selling, and delivering home-cooked meals to households and offices.

CEO, Rohit Gawli, an engineer by profession wants to unlock the talent and culinary potential of millions of home chefs and help them become self-reliant.

Speaking exclusively with PeakLife, Rohit shares his experiences and what motivated him to start this venture.

What was the whole idea behind launching Lokal Kitchen and how did the idea for your business come about?

I launched Lokal Kitchen with two important aspects: create a value proposition for the growing Indian passion for home-cooked food and address the social cause of women empowerment and entrepreneurship. Moreover, via Lokal Kitchen, I wanted to unlock the real talent and culinary potential of millions of home chefs and help them become self-reliant.

How did you come up with the name for your company?

Coming up with the name “Lokal Kitchen” was like hitting hard on the nail, a friend suggested this name, Lokal means we’re trying to harness the power of Local Home Chefs, and well, Kitchen sounds about right, where the food comes from.

Please share your experience in setting up Lokal Kitchen during the pandemic with us?

I believe in teamwork, when someone is motivated enough to achieve the results and goals set aside, nothing can stop them from doing so. We started with LK in the middle of a pandemic and things were already tricky before our journey begun. However, we ensured that the people and partners we got in the company knew the pros and cons of working with a start-up like ours, appropriate measures were in place and constant connects remotely through conference calls, brainstorming, 1:1 meets etc. helped us overcome those challenges and kept achieving milestones one after another. Moreover, the team has an average age of below 30, so we’re a group of young professionals who are adept at working remotely, and with new technologies and staying on top of social media trends. To summarize our setup, they say ‘well begun is half done’ and in our case we continue to keep shifting pedals and take every challenge as an opportunity to grow and evolve.

According to you, what are the key factors that make a great entrepreneur?

Although, adaptability and persistence surely top the list for me, some traits and characteristics plays a key role in the making of a great entrepreneur, few mentioned below. Ability to tackle situations at any point, excelling at customer service – being able to collect feedback and take appropriate actions, being able to lead and have vision, empowering people around to scale business operations.

Who do you consider an inspiration when it comes to being an entrepreneur?

Sir Anand Mahindra, & Sir Ratan Tata. It’s not about creating a big monetary valuation for your company, it’s all about improving the quality of life for the commoner, and how you give back to the society

Could you tell us about the culture in your organisation and how did you establish it?

As mentioned earlier, we’re a small team and we take great pride with how we operate. We launched the company while everyone on the team was remote; adapting and nurturing ourselves with the new way of work culture. We’re a start-up and everything that we do here has a strategic aspect to it where we provide service and gather inputs while establishing ourselves as one of the biggest home cooked food aggregator platforms in Mumbai within ~5 months of operation. While doing so, it gives us a sense of family and knowing that it’s going to help feed millions of people. We work with a purpose behind every task that is being assigned.

If you had to suggest 5 must read hospitality books during the pandemic, what would they be?

1. Setting the Table (Danny Meyer)

2. How to Run a Great Hotel (Enda Larkin)

3. 100 Tips for Hoteliers (Peter Venison)

4. Nuts! … (Kevin Freiberg)

5. The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People (Stephen Covey)

What key activities would you recommend entrepreneurs to invest their time in?

1. Invest time in studying the market, understanding the needs of your customers, and the problem statement you’re trying to solve.

2. Invest time in yourself, you need not be master of one, but rather be jack of all trades, learn new tools, expand your skill sets, be a great listener and an executioner.

Any advice you would give for our budding entrepreneurs in the foodtech space?

Finding comfort in discomfort, if this is something an entrepreneur can get used to, he/she can grow immensely as a person and their business. In a food-tech space, you have to be very open to critical feedback because there’s always going to be dissatisfied users. However, looking at the big picture if you’re going to disrupt the market or coming up with an extraordinary solution, help people realize the potential and convenience it can provide through appropriate channels.

Anything more you would like to add on Lokal Kitchen?

The unprecedented turn of events witnessed this year (2020) impacted economies and businesses gravely, however, I firmly believe that irrespective of the situation, the spirit of the people of this country is hard to dampen, especially those with entrepreneurial dreams. Keeping this in mind I teamed up with my childhood friend, Rohit Mhatre and launched Lokal Kitchen. We aim to tackle the Covid issue in two different aspects.

1. Providing healthy home cooked meals, a great alternative to restaurants

2. Focusing on Women Empowerment & providing a platform for women to earn, amidst the pandemic

Moreover, we’ve had an overwhelming response from our Home Chefs and Customers, the food cooked by our home chefs is with utmost care and passion. Standing true on our ‘Ghar se Ghar Tak’ ideology, each dish served through Lokal Kitchen is prepared using only fresh, locally sourced produce in a home kitchen just like yours with genuine, regional recipes by homemakers.

We are already associated with Home chefs coming from different backgrounds & culture which allows them to offer a variety of cuisines but also keeping in mind the quality of food served is top notch. Moreover, India is still a pre-mature market in terms of food delivery, and yet to peak. Post-Covid era will see a boom in online food deliveries as work from home becomes a norm, and eating comfort food at your own convenience gets preferred than going to a restaurant.