Nearly 39% passengers give their thumbs up to desi snacks and sweets while travelling, report

How is the food delivered by you is different from other catering players?

We are specialized in combo meals. We make sure about the train routes and type of people travelling in it. We ask our vendors to make flavours accordingly. We also make sure we have different kind of combo meals namely North Indian Maharaja Thali, South Indian Thali, Gujrathi Thali, Maharashtrian Dhapata Thali and Punjabi Thali etc. We also provide customers options to customize their meals and can order ‘à la carte’ menu of their choice available with the restaurants.

How this innovative idea to provide food on wheel initiated?

While at Satyam I was coordinating and working with teams in Hyderabad, Vishakhapatnam and Bangalore. There I had to do a lot of travel between cities. I used to carry food from home or restaurant so that I don't get sick. During those travel days, while craving for one of my favourite snack, this idea came to me. We got to have access to good quality restaurants in every city and have food of your own choice. And that’s how MeraFoodChoice was born.

What reasons you will give to the passengers to choose your food services as it is better and healthier?

MeraFoodChoice Pvt Ltd works for the customers; we are customer centric and take feedback of each and every food being delivered. If we find that the quality of food is not as expected by the customer, he is given maximum three packaging; else he is removed from the system. This makes sure, the quality of food is high and customer can depend of the food being served.

How to place orders on these portals?

The best way to place orders to us is via our website www.merafoodchoice.com or by call us at 0-8484-8484-26. You have to just supply the train number and our team would let you know, timing of the station, rate of the food etc. You can also get to know from our customer care executive, how many times the same food was ordered.

Which route is your most revenue generating? What is the reason behind the same?

Our best route is Mumbai to New Delhi via Central and Western route. The number of travel by train on this route is the highest as the journey is of 24 hours, customers do require food in trains.

Are you planning to provide meals in bus etc?

We would focus on train travel till we capture sizable market share and after that we would venture in to bus. We are ready with our process for Bus Food Delivery but we would wait for few more months to work with it.

More than 3 billion meals are consumed by long-distance train travellers every year. Yet, access to food inside train coaches is a major challenge. Food vendors empanelled by the Indian Railways offer a limited choice of poor quality, un-hygienic and overpriced food. Pantry cars are known for abysmal food preparation quality and service. And this has given Pushpinder Singh a channel to start something of his own, where he could provide food to travellers.

How the innovative idea of starting TravelKhana initiate?

As an avid traveller I realised that despite having so much technology to serve people buying tickets or hotels, the travellers still experience discomfort when it comes to obtaining services on the move. If that is solved, travellers in India can travel much more comfortably as they will not be limited by their movement and not be victims of unscrupulous food vendors, taxi cab operators and the like. A marketplace was the natural choice for such a problem to be solved. As it was simply impossible for a start-up to have the resources to do everything – from producing/merchandising the supply to managing the market and technology, so we focussed on the single biggest problem. Food in train was thus an obvious choice to be solved.

TravelKhana’s platform tracks train running information to insure meal delivery at the right time, at the right seat, that is fresh and ready to eat. The entire process is managed by a completely automated workflow that sends real time reminders to passengers as well as restaurants so that the entire process can happen smooth and fast.

What special menu does TravelKhana provide for customer travelling via rail?

Travelkhana has been a marketplace for restaurants wherein the menu of the restaurants is listed for the customers to order from. Over the course, we realised that options listed in the menu are limited; also, the predictability on the service provided by restaurants is low. As a result, we decided to standardise across the board.

Starting Sep-1, 2015, we have standardised menus and prices across the board. Along with the standardisation, we are also building a quality and processes layer that will control the restaurants and their quality. Our quality and audit team will work with such restaurants to bring up their quality to a uniform standard.  Along with this, we will also have a feature of “featured restaurants” wherein large brands or local specialties can be listed as featured restaurants. This way we serve the long tail as well as the mass market needs.

Which route is your most revenue generating? What is the reason behind the same?

Trunk routes between major metros like Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Kolkata, and Chennai are the highest revenue generating.

What are your views on the FSSAI law and its take on food product?

We think the FSSAI is an encouraging step. As a part of our standardisation drive, we insist that FSSAI is a minimum must besides other standards that restaurants must take up.

Are you planning to provide meals in bus etc.?

Yes. We are in the middle of planning this. We will do 4-5 major southern cities to start this activity.

What is your expansion plan?

We will increase our depth in the cities we are present. Besides, we will locate ourselves in 400 stations from the current 160. We are increasing ground presence at these stations and building regional teams under regional managers covering a region. Southern market is a market where our presence earlier was limited. We are increasing our penetration there. A tie up with IRCTC is on the cards.

Additionally, we think that the need of good food for highway travellers is also a big requirement. We will get into that as well soon as our standardisation drive gets underway. 

Tell us something about your business model?

We earn commissions on food delivered through us.

Ordering online food has become similar to the ordering goods online. This is the new emerging trend which brands like TravelKhana and YatraChef has initiated by delivering food in railways, at stations or in trains. It is not just about convenience of consumers but at the same time it is delivering fresh and healthy food.

“India has such a wide diverse palate of food and why should the travellers in trains, which is the lifeline of the nation travelling through every nook and corner, be devoid of any option to enjoy those. It was something born out of necessity triggered by my own personal experience which does look funny in retrospect though honestly it was nowhere close,” shared Arun Rajan, CEO, YatraChef.

A lot of people consume food from the trains on every day basis; therefore nutritional food is a must to be served. As it is known to everyone how Indian Railways offer poor quality food, unhygienic and on the top of that overpriced.

According to the reports, India’s railways catering sector is worth Rs 4,000 crore and has been a topic of debate for poor quality food since years. The online marketplace of railway catering has so gained quick attention although it is in nascent stage and is picking up fast to cover all stations across India.

As a result, many entrepreneurs came up with this idea to start and deliver online food in trains as per the journey schedule of passengers. Pushpinder Singh, CEO TravelKhana, said, “TravelKhana’s platform tracks train running information to insure meal delivery at the right time at the right seat that is fresh and ready to eat. The entire process is managed by a completely automated workflow that sends real time reminders to passengers as well as restaurants so that the entire process can happen smooth and fast”.

Authenticity of food

Delivery of food at train is the major concern by not providing authentic food to the passengers. As so many disease are round the corner, people have became health conscious and therefore they ask for healthy hygienic food to be served while they travel.

Piyush Kasliwal, MD, Mera Food Choice commented, “Our organization believes in customer first attitude. With each order getting delivered with the customer, MFC makes sure to take feedback by call every time. This makes sure we get the right feedback of the food being supplied. If there are smaller issues, the same are being communicated with the vendors and rectified. If there are major issues, vendors are given 3 warnings at max and there after removed from MFC listing. This process if full-proof to make sure – we have the best food for our customers”.

With the authenticity of food, menu is also an important factor to keep in mind as it is the place from where the people order the food.  Menu also informs the customer about the dishes availability, prices and also promotes certain dishes in high visibility positions. Kasliwal further added, “We make sure as per the train routes and type of people travelling in it. We ask our vendors to make flavours accordingly”.

Adding his view on the food safety, Rajan, pointed, “Food safety is a big concern and I feel that FSSAI laws if enforced in all its genuinely is a great stepping stone. Our experience of interacting with lots of food providers over the years have made us realize that not a lot of these vendors even know about the basic restaurant licensing procedures leave alone FSSAI laws and norms.  Educating and enforcing these laws at a grass root level is what we feel is the need of the hour and this has to be taken with paramount importance”.

Way Ahead

The online food ordering business is huge and so the number of online order is expected to increase by 10 percent of the total number at the moment which include start-ups also. Similar to the railways, good quality food is a requirement at the highways and bus route services.  Thus, it is significant to achieve a level of standardisation and quality assurance in food.