 Hello and welcome to Exchange for Media. We have with us today the founders of the Chef Crafted Instant Food brand, you, Mr. Varun Kapoor and Mr. Bharat Valla. Thank you for joining us. Thank you. Thank you for having us. So this brand of yours is about healthy instant food that can be whipped in five minutes. And you started in 2020 with a makeshift R&D facility and now it has turned into a big lab in Gurgaon. And congratulations, this is your first brand campaign and which says up no compromise. So what is the inspiration behind it and what does it mean for you? So thank you. Thank you for having us once again. The idea behind you where it was conceptualized was to bring about a change for a revolution I can say in the packaged food space. What we wanted to do was to bring forth products to consumers in a packaged food format that tastes as close as possible to freshly prepared food. So while we retain the convenience that is associated with packaged foods, we wanted consumers to not feel guilty while consuming them and to actually enjoy it while consuming them. So essentially what we are doing is consumers today with the rising urbanization in this country, we feel they don't want to compromise on while they are obviously happy to consume packaged foods. They don't want to compromise on the quality or the taste of the food that they consume. So with you our concept revolves around no compromise on health, quality, taste, time or convenience. Where time and convenience is always associated with convenient foods. The other three facets that I kind of spoke about which is health because we don't add any kind of preservatives. We only use kind of natural substances, quality, the kind of quality of products that we provide to the end consumer and the taste being as close as possible to freshly prepared food. So really it kind of dents on these four or five principles that I just described. So that's why our entire campaign is based on the premise that young India aspiring Indian today should not compromise. So that's why hashtag have no compromise. That's great and this is your first campaign and you chose it to do with IPL and Harvick Pandya on board. So what led to this collaboration and how is it going? So Harvick was a decision that when Bharat and I first came together to think through possible celebrities who we could join hands with and collaborate, Harvick really stood out as a name for both of us. He's a youth icon, extremely popular and has done extremely well over the last few years. So in that sense from the target group that we as a brand target, I think he meets the bill extremely well. The geographies that we target again, he stands out and being a cricketer and cricket because of IPL is now so diverse in its viewership including now women audiences coming and watching cricket. So in that sense and this year being a cricket kind of year with having the IPL right now and then during the later part of the year you have the one day international World Cup which India is hosting. So in that sense to leverage upon that as well. So keeping all that and actually we were fortunate and blessed that we could actually get Harvick to partner and that also started off with him drawing our products and really being kind of surprised that instant foods or packaged foods can indeed taste as close as possible to freshly prepared food. So that helped us kind of stitch this together. So yes, so it's very, very excited. I think we've landed one of the best celebrities that there is in India today. From a brand fitment perspective also because when I just spoke about no compromise, I think for us he kind of embodies that sentiment very well of no compromise and being a youth icon himself I think it'll do very well in terms of the fitment in terms of his campaign being spearheaded by him. Well congratulations and all the best with that. My next question is that your brand it vouchers for healthy food and instant food. There are many such other brands already in the market. So what gives you an edge over them? You know when you look at ready to eat or packaged foods in totality not much has changed in the last 15 to 20 years. In terms of the technology, in terms of the kind of products that are out there, you obviously have new brands that have come out, you have sort of older brands launching some of the earlier brands again. But not much has changed in terms of the fundamental quality of technology that is associated with bringing these products together. And a lot of that goes is because of the fact that a lot of the innovation actually happened in the food tech space to the onset of the swiggies and the savannas of the world and the cloud kitchen that kind of came about by virtue of that. So when we started looking at this package food category, we sense that this category needs a lot to be desired. You know we are sitting in 2022-23 now and there's a lot that can be done to bring the right quality food to consumers. Something that even though it's packaged doesn't have any food substitutes, I mean I'm not even talking about preservatives, I'm talking about the concept of actually giving products to consumers that are that actually contain real food as opposed to using any food substitutes or any chemicals to that effect. So if you look at that fundamental, there's really nothing that has actually transpired in the last sort of many, many years. So this is where you know with the kind of advanced food science technology and the chef crafted kind of foods that people brought to the market, I think we're pretty much the only ones who are doing this across cuisines. We're not just doing one particular cuisine, it's not like you're bringing oriental food to homes or like Italian food to consumers. It's pretty much all-day meal option with the same common principle of bringing food in its most natural form even though it's packaged. So this for us is the clear mode and we will continue to innovate and continue to do more things around this particular mode as we evolve with the brand. Right and talking about advertising and marketing, what is your like what budget did you set aside for advertising and what are the platforms you're looking at to reach out to the consumers? So it's a 60-day plan for the time being and it'll be concurrent on several platforms. Obviously there's the IPL where we will be very active during this season then across meta with Instagram. So we've got some campaigns lined up for that channel as well and then Google with YouTube. So on the online side it's very active and currently over the next 45 to 60 days this campaign and just this whole fever of cricket to kind of capture that alongside. And we are an omnichannel brand so in that sense we will also have campaigns running offline in retail stores where in 4,000 retail stores as we speak. So with the heartache advertisements running inside the stores as well including in-app where we sell our products. So whether it's quick commerce or e-commerce and also very interestingly we as we sell our products on airlines as well. We are live on two airlines going on to a third airline. So we have a very interesting campaign starting in Nevada with an airline which we will be carried on their boarding passes and we will be carried on the headrest on every seat in the airline. So it's really trying to you know in this it's like a in this 60 days to kind of really in all the segments that we operate to try and leverage this and amplify this campaign. That's great and before I let you both go my last question is are there any more products in the pipeline currently you're offering products mainly noodles and pasta in different categories like you divided it into breakfast, lunch, dinner and dessert. So what more products are in the pipeline and expansion plans? For us like I said a lot of the products that we do revolves around the concept of really two things. If there's something that we believe we can do better than what is available in the market in its most natural form we will attempt it. If we believe that there is something that we could do that solves the consumer main point in this particular food category we will attempt that you know we will make an attempt at that as well. So to give you a case in point we just launched our you know our hakan noodles which is pretty much the first time that you've made hakan noodles instant by giving the consumers the ability to have sauce, cut vegetables, you know a chili oil as well as noodles all in one bag. So all a person needs to do is just boil some water and like restaurant quality menus are ready in a matter of five minutes right. So if you really look at it the idea is to you know do things that other people that people want but brands or other kind of you know companies in the food space have not really offered that to consumers. So we kind of lead that effort kind of are the first movers whether it was with our pasta whether it's you know with the halwas which come in you know gajar ka halwa or moondal halwa or our saucy noodles. So like I said there are more things that we're working on we have a pipeline of about 10 odd products even now we're attempting something very unique in the Indian kind of food category something that is allowed by all people so we're trying to make that food instant. So let's see how we probably launched that at the turn of the fall this year in everyone coinciding with the World Cup with the ICC World Cup. So let's see how that goes but lot of like products in the pipeline you continue to see us innovating and staying ahead of the curve when it comes to innovating for this new Indian. That's great thank you for talking to us Varun and Bharat all the best to you for your journey ahead and with the new brand campaign. Thank you. Appreciate it. Thank you.