On the Eve of Navratri festival In our Entrepreneur series today we are introducing you a very dynamic and popular Entrepreneur of Ahmedabad who is known for her remarkable and outstanding performance in the field of Food Industry who always believes in Women Empowerment. Yes we are talking about Jeni Chitral Desai, she shares her Entrepreneurial journey with Hello Mumbainews.com team.
Startup Name : Bhojan
Founder : Jeni Chitral Desai and Hiren Prajapati
Famous As : Food Entrepreneur
Startup Headquarter : Ahmedabad
Some people have conventionally never really been exposed to pursuing Food Entrepreneurship as a career. This stands accurate not just for India but the world over.
However, some people with a passion for food entrepreneurship are using their culinary and pioneering skills to take dominant and considerable strides in the restaurant space.
One such Food Entrepreneur is none other than Ahmedabad based Jeni Chitral Desai.
Hello Mumbai News took the privilege to catch up with this passionate Food Entrepreneur to share his successful Entrepreneurial journey for an interview. Excerpts of the interview.
Aleem Shaikh : Hi Jeni, Welcome to Hello Mumbai News. Nice to catch up with you. Please Introduce yourself for our audience.
Jeni Desai : Hello Mumbai News and everyone out there.
I am Jeni Chitral Desai, Ahmedabad based food Entrepreneur and Co-Founder of ‘Bhojan ‘ Food delivery service. By virtue of our good qualitative food and speedy service, we were privileged to have more 700 clients per day.
After graduating in Commerce I took up a job with Reliance Group and HDFC bank. Apart this job I was also running my event company and my startup is 3 year old. Nevertheless, we found ourselves lucky to be reposed with good trust and recognition in Ahmedabad.
I ventured into this food startup with my friend Hiren Prajapati who was blessed with good professional background.
Aleem Shaikh : Jeni, please enlighten What genre of clients and customers patronise your outlet?
Jeni Chitral Desai : Well, we have varied clients but mostly senior citizens whose children are based out abroad and are living alone. Speaking about our clients- customers, we have Corporate clients and also take order for wedding reception, birthday party and corporate events etc. We do have Home Delivery Service. Touch wood we serve more than 700 people who relish our mouth watering food. Apart catering, we do provide breakfast, lunch and dinner
Aleem Shaikh : Apprise us what Challenges and difficulties you encountered in the initial stage and from whom you got?
Jeni Chitral Desai : Frankly speaking and to be honest at the outset, every entrepreneur faces challenges in the initial stages. But, my challenges in this food industry was totally raw for me and so it consumed a lot of time to judge the real food requirement or taste of the people at low cost. Me and my partner Hiran had approximately tasted more than 25 food dishes from different venues and later arrived to a conclusion. We launched our startup amid the outbreak of pandemic and lockdown. Hence, marketing and to generate awareness about our brand was a big challenge but we managed it.
My previous corporate contacts and network was of immense help to build-up our brand. Coming to Support, at the outset, I would mention about my husband who by profession is a Civil Engineer with vast experience in real estate. I had his moral suport and this meant a lot for me. He was extremely generous to deposit money every month in my account as a salary, but I never used it. I ventured into this food business in my sons name out of my savings. My father-in-law and mother-in-law too helped me to make food at home. Amid the lockdown I used my home kitchen for making food and started delivery from home. Daily, we supplied food to 150 people three times and also supplied food to hospitals.
Aleem Shaikh : Jeni, please throw light on something about your food and services.
Jeni Chitral Desai : Well, We provide pure veg food and fresh food is our priority. We prepare varieties of food such as Rajasthani, Kathiyawadi, Punjabi everyday and had different menu for each day. We don’t repeat our Menu. Monthly, we provide breakfast, lunch and dinner and have cloud kitchen with 15 staffers.
Aleem Shaikh : How did this idea struck your mind to start Bhojan and who inspired you?
Jeni Chitral Desai : Very interesting question. Listen , When Covid pandemic broke out globally it impacted every industry very badly more so our event industry. So got quite upset with the situation. One fine day, in my local area one Aunty approached me for help as she was a victim of breast cancer in the last stage. She was staying alone with her husband due to this lockdown their tiffin services stopped and nobody helping them can i provide daily tiffin service to them. After seeing their situation I couldn’t stop my self and started send tiffin from my home and i did it four months .After this I realized there may be so many cases in Ahmedabad like this .i talked with my family members and I discussed with my friend Hiren why not we should start such type of food delivery service for elderly people at affordable price specially during this pandemic .After this our startup journey began.
Aleem Shaikh : Please elaborate on your future plan to expand your startup.
Jeni Chitral Desai : Good question. We plan to open our own branches across India in metro cities like Mumbai, Surat, Jaipur ,Indore and other parts of India.
We don’t believe in franchises pattern, but we will create our own set up in every city.
Aleem Shaikh : What inspirational message you like to convey to Entrepreneurs.
Jeni Chitral Desai : Yes, definitely, each and everyone should be an entrepreneur, and for the sake of success, you need to have keep patience. Don’t be upset at failures as in every sphere of business there are ups and downs. Startup journey takes a long period and you have to be very focus minded and sincere on your vision and not to be afraid about failures.
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