April 27 2016, 18.08 PM IST || Pocket News Alert
(L-R) Sandeep Penmatsa, Founder, Chief of Marketing, Hello Curry; Yuv Raj Poosarla, Co-Founder, First Meal; Suraj Subedi, Co-Founder, First Meal; Saswata De, Co-Founder, First Meal & Raju Bhupati, Founder, CEO, Hello Curry, at the signing of MoU for acquiring of "The First Meal" - a food delivery startup, by "Hello Curry" - South India's Best QSR Chain, today at Hyderabad.
Hyderabad, April 27, 2016: In its relentless pursuit to offer healthy food with convenient packaging and quick delivery service, Hello Curry - South India’s Best QSR Chain, today announced acquiring of “The First Meal”- a food delivery startup that takes pre-orders from customers through its robust subscription platform. The terms of the deal remain undisclosed, but consists of both cash and stock.
This acquisition helps Hello Curry to penetrate into the breakfast and meal box segments through the subscription framework. Balanced meals have always been overlooked in the Indian sub continent, but there is a change now, as many customers are opting for right intake of food their meals. The First Meal's “Meal Box” is consciously prepared by food experts keeping in mind the nutrition values of several ingredients that go into the making. The subscription platform through which First Meal is offering various packages to customers ranging from 1 week and up to a month, gives tremendous flexibility in customizing the food as all orders and customer preferences are known fairly in advance.
Raju Bhupati, CEO of Hello Curry, is on a roll & excited about the possibilities - "While there is a churn in the food delivery industry, we are well-poised for huge growth due to the strategic decisions we have already made and our strong commitment to delivering high quality, healthy food. In a market place that has no entry barriers, we think of ourselves as a long distance runner. Our focus on quality and predictability has already endeared our customers. We highly prize it. It is this trust that makes our aim to mark 5000 meals per day within the next 6 months an undaunting prospect through this First Meal acquisition"
Sandeep Penmatsa, Co-Founder and Chief of marketing, explains that: in the current context of exaggerated competition where several street-side food vendors are delivering food at 60-80 rupees, quality standards of food took serious beating and the hygiene is heavily compromised. From the inception of Hello Curry our focus has always been towards giving the most hygiene food to customers and with this acquisition our commitment towards delivering the best food will further be strengthened as we know what to prepare for lunch and for how many. As the predictability of orders grows up our systems efficiencies will substantially increase. Our delivery boys can carry multiple orders at a time and our infrastructure and man power can be highly optimized. We can also offer wide range of food choices to customers through this subscription framework. We will conquer Hyderabad market in the next 3 months and will look forward to enter into Bangalore and other key cities of India.
Started in the middle of 2015 by entrepreneurs Yuv Raj Poosarla, Saswata De and Suraj Subedi along with Ravi Varma and Sathvik Ponangi, with help from mentor Joginder Tanikella, The First Meal has become rapidly popular in the breakfast segment and acquired a huge loyal customer base. It serves 5 types of diet balanced items for breakfast and daily changing nutritious lunches (meal boxes) and reaches upwards of 10,000 boxes monthly, with 89% customer retention rate, highest in the industry.