In India’s cloud kitchens, dreams of a healthy-eating unicorn
- India’s food-delivery market is worth an estimated US$15 billion
- Start-ups like cure.fit are cashing in on an insatiable demand for nutritious food
As India awakens to the insatiable demand by consumers for nutritious delivered meals, one start-up has planted itself firmly in the middle of the trend, with its eyes on world expansion.
Cure.fit, an integrated platform for food, fitness and meditation, is among a handful of market disrupters offering meals prepared in “cloud kitchens” – a concept where food is cooked in a centralised facility with no dine-in option, and then delivered to customers, including those in remote areas.
The Bangalore-based firm, which has dozens of cloud kitchens across five cities, delivers over 40,000 freshly prepared meals a day to health-conscious millennials. Menu items are varied in terms of cuisine, calorie levels and dietary preferences, including high-protein, high-fibre, or vegan takes on Indian dishes like biryani. Cure.fit also offers healthy snacks such as cold-pressed juices, quinoa crisps and trail mixes.
Just three years young, the app’s latest round of funding in May placed its worth at US$500 million, and some pundits are tipping it to become India’s next unicorn.
Amid its tremendous growth, cure.fit plans to expand its range of healthy offerings, which includes gym plans and mental wellness programmes. It even opened a physical outlet in Bangalore last October.
But offering nutritious food from its cloud kitchens, under its eat.fit food-delivery arm, remains central to cure.fit’s operations.