The Idea and Inception
We launched Dil Foods in March 2022 with the idea to build on the capabilities of small and medium businesses’ previously existing but underutilized infrastructure to develop a network that can meet multicuisine demands for authentic regional food.
When it comes to regular meals, Indians have a wide range of preferences. However, catering to multi-cuisine needs in a single-themed restaurant is logistically and operationally difficult. Small restaurants serving regional cuisine have to overcome rents and other fixed costs, while also struggling to remain viable after incurring marketing costs. Smaller restaurants operating at this scale in India have had a high rate of closure.
We have identified such critical concerns and devised a strategy to overcome them. We assist independent restaurants with training, packaging, and marketing, as well as assimilating them into the larger Dil brand. Upon integrating these restaurants into the Dil Foods team, we aim to include many regional cuisines.
In India, there is a tremendous white space to organize the unorganized segment, improving the quality of their services and experience. At Dil Foods, we aim to perfect our offerings and get more repeat orders from customers, who will find our solution to be affordable and original.
In India, food is an emotion. Our daily meals remind us of our loved ones and all the beautiful memories that we make with them. However, a lot of us miss out on this fulfilling experience as we migrate to different cities for work and education, leaving a piece of our hearts behind.
With Dil, we are trying to bring back the warmth of a mother’s food from different parts of India.
With Dil, we are bringing home back to people’s plates.
So, we chose the name Dil, because home is where Dil is.
From an idea to a business
The big idea for Dil Foods was to make business profitable and sustainable for small and medium restaurants. Along with this, we also wanted to solve the problem of a dearth of authentic regional Indian food. We married the two and created a sustainable system, where the staff of these small restaurants are trained to provide an excellent experience to customers through Dil Brands. The restaurants were able to add another revenue stream with high profitability to their operations, and we were able to create a shared economy, while delivering on the promise of original Indian cuisines.
Insights
Our target audience is working professionals between the age group of 20 and 55. We aim to serve people who have spending capacity and choose to order meals from restaurants rather than cooking one themselves. They want authentic food at sustainable prices, with a variety of cuisines. Currently, we are serving this TG in Bengaluru but are expanding to other metro cities in the near future.
As of now, we are live on 2 online platforms – Swiggy and Zomato – for delivery across 13+ locations in Bengaluru, including Indiranagar, Whitefield, Ramamurthy Nagar, Koramangala, New BEL Road, Marathahalli, and more.
Challenges
The biggest challenge was to identify the right set of culinary and training teams who can use their expertise to train small and medium-scaled restaurants. Initially, some of the restaurants we partnered with had staff who were not able to communicate in common languages – they were not able to acknowledge or accept orders properly, since they are not well-educated or skilled.
To find a culinary team who would be comfortable with such a training process was our challenge.
Our USP
Our USP lies in brand compartmentalization and recall. In terms of compartmentalization, we have created separate but coherent sub-brands under the larger Dil Foods brand. Two of these are live now – Dil Punjabi and Dil Tiffins. This division helps us understand specific demands and responses for and to one particular brand or cuisine. With our brands, we intend to create a recall value, such that the first option to come to mind for authentic Indian meals is a Dil Foods brand.
Rather than attempting to serve all varieties of western cuisine, Dil Foods is concentrating on filling a supply vacuum in real regional Indian cuisine. While multiple global cuisines are offered through chains and standalone restaurants in metro cities, no one has filled the economically sustainable gap for everyday meals for working professionals.
Distribution Channels
Dil Punjabi and Dil Tiffins are live online and open for delivery on Swiggy and Zomato. Once we gain momentum and launch more brands, they will be shifted onto our own online platform to be launched soon.
Marketing Strategy
Our marketing strategy is to become a brand that creates a sustainable market while catering to diverse regional cuisine requirements in India. As of now, we have positioned ourselves as the go-to option for working professionals who crave for a taste of home, while opting to order online rather than cook a meal themselves. Since our USP lies in the compartmentalization of our brands, we look forward to becoming the established solution for authentic Indian meals to replace the chore of cooking in a working professional’s everyday life. We hope to have our customers return to us day after day for the same.
In terms of marketing, we choose to interact with our target audience through different social media platforms. Engaged customers are the key to establishing a long-lasting presence for us, and we keep using interactive methods to keep in touch with them. Currently, our brands are live on Swiggy and Zomato, but once we gather momentum, we will port our brands onto our own ordering platform, where customers can choose from all the different varieties of regional food that we have to offer.
Funding
We received 128,000 USD in funding from angel investors in 2022. This fund is going to be used for our expansion into more cities across India. It will also be used to improve the quality of cuisine and services that we work on with our restaurant partners while establishing Dil Foods as the go-to option for real regional cuisine.
About the Founder
Arpita Aditi established Dil Foods in March of this year. As the Founder and CEO of Dil Foods, she oversees strategy development, sales, business operations, marketing, and growth. Arpita has had a passion for the food industry since she was a child. She graduated from Manipal Institute of Technology with a degree in Biotechnical Engineering. Soon after, she shifted her focus to cuisine and entrepreneurship.
She got the opportunity to learn firsthand the challenges of establishing a successful food business while working as the National Partnership Manager at Swiggy for two years in 2017. Before starting her own company, she co-founded Nutnbolt in May 2020, which focused on marketing and day-to-day operations for the online business segment of small restaurants, and which has since evolved into Dil Foods, a sustainable, well-organized aggregator for small to medium food enterprises.
Arpita’s aim for Dil Foods as CEO is for it to become the largest internet brand for Indian cuisine while also assisting local businesses in thriving and scaling in a sustainable and future-proof manner. The execution competence, automated supply chain, and experience of the team, which has built over 30 cloud brands from the ground up in the last 18 months, are Dil’s main differentiators.
Future Plans:
We plan on expanding to multiple metro cities with more and more brands under the Dil Foods umbrella. Currently, we have 2 brands – Dil Punjabi and Dil Tiffins live in Bengaluru. Our plan is to introduce 4 more brands here, before starting our work in other metro cities. The goal is to reach 100+ outlets by the end of FY22-23.
Our mission is to use the underutilized resources of small and medium-sized restaurants to build Indian regional cuisine brands thus adding an additional stream of revenue for small restaurants. We want to democratize access to good food on a sustainable basis.
Our vision is threefold – we want to make the restaurant business sustainable while satiating the hunger of Indians from all regions. We aim to build the largest Indian cuisine brand, in its truest sense, and all are plans are geared towards that goal.
“Dil Foods was envisioned as the umbrella under which small businesses could come together to provide authentic regional food. We want to capture the essence of Indian cuisines and offer it to consumers through our network of supported small restaurants. To date, 2 brands under Dil Foods are already live – and we have 4 more on the way, soon. Team Dil is excited to bring out the best of what India has to offer from different regions, directly on your plate.”
About Dil Foods
Launched in March 2022, Dil Foods uses the already existing but underused infrastructure of small and medium businesses to build on their capacity and create a network that can cater to multicuisine demands. Dil Foods, headquartered in Bengaluru, is connected to networks of regional food businesses offering diverse cuisines. This system is designed to enrich the value chain while reaching a wider target audience. Dil has created an OS that is connected to networks of local food businesses offering diverse cuisines. This system is designed in a way that enables small restaurants to fulfil orders of Dil Brands while standardizing their supply chain to cater to a mix of Indian audiences with an elevated experience.
