BENGALURU: Do you remember going to a friend’s house as a child and their mother or grandmother feeding you authentic Andhra Bobbatlu, Pulihora and Gottu Vankaya or Gujarati Khandvi, Undhiyu and Khaman? Cities today are a melting pot of different cultures but it is still difficult to find unique regional dishes. Enter FoodyBuddy, a network that connects neighbours through home-cooked food. The app helps connect buyers to people around them who make these authentic dishes at home. 

The service has sold more than 2,50,000 meals and has a reach of 20,000 households. Akil Sethuraman, co-founder of FoodyBuddy, believes food brings people closer and encourages a friendly, healthy and interactive community, and adds that the app aims to foster the same between buyers and sellers. The company recently raised 6 crore in pre-series A funding, with which they are planning to expand into new geographies, build a network in Bengaluru and have 1,00,000 home chefs on board by the end of 2019.

Rama Rao is one such home chef who has delivered over 2,000 meals to her neighbours in the last 14 months. The fictional short story writer and a retired teacher says, “Cooking is my passion and it feels great that at the age of 59, I am doing what makes me happy.”

Rao joined FoodyBuddy in November 2017 and was initially nervous about cooking for others. Good reviews, however, boosted her confidence and  there has been no looking back since then. She mostly cooks dishes such as idli, vada, pongal for breakfast and akki roti, poha, poori sagu and rasam for lunch.

On FoodyBuddy, home chefs decide what they want to sell, the quantity, delivery timings, cut-off time to order and the price. 

Visalakshi Chandrasekharan, 58, who goes by the name Laxmi on the app  and ‘Murukku Aunty’ in her neighbourhood, is a retired bank employee turned homemaker in Whitefield. She has completed over 600 orders since she started cooking on the platform in August 2018 and earns 10,000 to 15,000 every month. 

Other than murukku, she receives repeat orders for ragi dosa batter, idli batter, ghee pongal, lemon rice and coconut rice. “As I step out of my house, people in my neighbourhood recognise me and talk about my food. The overwhelming response that I have received for my food has given a new meaning to my life,” says Laxmi.

how it started 

Rao joined FoodyBuddy in November 2017 and was initially nervous about cooking for others. Good reviews, however, boosted her confidence and  there has been no looking back since then. She mostly cooks dishes such as idli, vada, pongal for breakfast and akki roti, poha, poori sagu and rasam for lunch.