An impresario is a meze. An entrepreneur is an initiator, a competitor. Someone that produces something original, either an initiative, a business or a syndicate. He or she is the founder (and sometimes the end) of a venture, project or activity. The entrepreneur might not be the ideator, but he or she is unquestionably the one that elects to make that notion a reality.
Entrepreneurship means diverse things to diverse people. Some imagine tech geniuses with Silicon Valley startups, while others picture small business owners opening up their shop accesses on Main Street. Eventually, entrepreneurship incorporates these and many other business ventures that share a obligation to whirling an idea into a profitable business.
Making the resolution to not follow a system, or someone else’s rules has permitted women to really excavate into what their own assets and gifts are without disbursements of time feeling jaded or wasteful.
Cooking and women for the elongated time in History, women have been tantamount with cooking and vice versa, but only in the domestic confines. Some women chose to fight the dogma and step out in the world and excel in domains different to them, some chose to transform the face of food altogether. Either ways they came out as winners. Following is a list of Women Entrepreneurs in food industry-
Patricia Narayan, Director of Sandheepa Chain of Restaurants
Winner of the FICCI Woman magnate of the Year Award in 2010, Patricia Narayan, Director of Sandheepa Chain of Restaurants, embodies a tale of strength, resilience and endurance. Each time life caught her at the hardest of crossroads, she stood up tougher and stouter. In her own words, she chose ‘to live’. From stirring out of an abusive relationship with her husband, and be marooned at 18 with her two children to being the director of one of the leading restaurant chains in Chennai, Patricia’s journey is made of stuff dreams are made of. To upkeep her children, Patricia started manufacturing jams, squashes, pickles. Soon later, she set up a barrow at Chennai’s Marina beach where, in no time at all, her samosas, cutlets, coffee and tea became a frenzy amongst all. A successful skimp of catering business ensued thereafter and life finally began taking a good turn for this determined lady. But universe seemed to have other plans. The demise of her daughter Sandheepa left Patricia broken. She handed over the business to her son Praveen, but later in 2 years, she was back with a restaurant chain dedicated to her daughter. ‘Sandheepa chain of restaurants’ is now renowned across Chennai and employs over 200 folks across its various outlets.
Apeksha Jain, Founder of The Gourmet Jar
Her formula of triumph has a lot to do with France, a foodie instinct and a lot of free time. It was in the year 2009, when she was in Paris where her husband was studying MBA. Her unrestricted time made her discover many innovative ingredients and recipes. Apeksha soon took to food blogging to flue her new found concern. The formation of Gourmet Jar though happened gradually with a banana jam which Apeksha first tasted at a trivial orchard in Burgundy described it as “love at first bite”. Apeksha considered numerous recipes to oblige her and husband’s cravings at home later. Soon she started experimenting with other savours and the Indian jam market had a fresh new face in ‘The Gourmet Jar’.The Gourmet Jar offers a series of premium jams, preserves, relishes and mustards, in unique flavour combinations, that are handmade in small batches, from scratch, using all-natural ingredients and no stabilizers or condiments.
Her best-selling flavours are banana rum jam, orange whisky marmalade, mango jalapeno reserve, and spicy onion relish. By 2012, Apeksha started from home, and peddled her products through facebook and within 2 years, her sales registered a benevolent boost and the business moved out of her house. Now, they have a 4,000-sqft production unit in Noida, where there is an all women production team. The energetic woman inclined her investors through a corpulent of blind tasting, a host of Indian introduced brands were kept with a few jars of her flavorful delights, and in no time the investors were all gaga over her jams. A lot of awards and felicitations followed, “Our Orange Whisky Marmalade was awarded a Bronze medal in the World Marmalade Awards 2015 that took place in Dalemain, UK. To be the first entry from India in their history, and to win this honour in the land of conserves is a huge acheivement for us” says a beaming Apeksha.
The key milestone for Apeksha though was when her husband decided to resign his full time job to join her. Can the journey be any ‘sweeter’ for her!
Mira Jhala , Founder of Purist catering service
A alumna from the Indian Institute of Hotel Management Aurangabad, Mira is somewhat a veteran when it comes to food industry serving top hotels like Taj and Hyatt Chicago. Her decade long amenity in the food and hospitality industry is jam-packed with many a laurels worth extoling.
Mira memories her journey with pride that kick-started in 2009 when she moved from the US to bring her visualization of changing the corporate food service landscape in India to realism. With numerous successful catering milestones in her career, she seems not to be so far from her delusion.
Her endeavour ‘Purist’ established in December 2015, is the newest to accumulation to her journey in the business of food service, ‘a world class corporate food service company with a clear focus on addressing the evolving food needs of the new urban consumer’ is how the founder likes to define her venture.
Purist today obliges more than 2000 meals a day, and Mira is already eyeing the subsequent milestone of scaling the company to 10,000 meals/day over the next 18 months’’. With an involvement so enviable and zeal so fiery, we suspect the leeway of any difficulty being big enough in preventing this woman from accomplishing her goalmouths.
Urvashi’s chole Kulche cart
Urvashi’s waggon based in Gurgaon sector 14, is a perfect example of how one can’t take anything for ratified in life. The world came collapsing down for Urvashi when her husband suffered hip surgery after a critical accident. It was then that this school teacher took it upon herself to salvage her family from a financial crunch and step out of her domestic limitations. Urvashi decided to invest in a roadside food cart for additional income. For Urvashi who possesses a lavish flat in Gurgaon and two SUV’s, the choice to step out on the streets and sweat it out for money wasn’t an easy one. But she didn’t want her children registered in expensive private schools of Gurgaon to swallow the impact, and decided to resign her job as a teacher and run the food cart. Initially fronting resistance from family for starting a business not identical up to her status, Urvashi now has full support of her family, and wishes to start a food truck or open a restaurant soon.
Rashmi Daga, Founder CEO Fresh Menu
Established in 2014, Rashmi Daga is one of the most protruding faces of Food tech apps. Fresh Menu is an online food delivery podium and has developed one of the most favorite food apps midst the youth across several cities in India. The startup hires around 500 people, runs its own kitchens to cook healthy food in-house, and runs its own packaging and delivery staff to deliver the gourmet delight at your doorsteps. Fresh Menu deals a bevy of cuisines and experimental food from across the world, to guarantee you get the taste of the world in the interior of your homes.
Rashmi Daga’s run in the business has been occupied with smashes and obstacles, but at the end of them all, she has always emanated out smiling. Fresh Menu holds about 26 kitchens currently, and all the kitchens have the capability to knob over a thousand orders daily. Rashmi plans to open many more kitchens in the upcoming years.
Shilarna Vaze, Renowned TV Personality and Founder of Ninja Sushi
Famously known as chef Chinu is a much loved TV personality, chef, traveler, blogger all enveloped in one. The Multitasker also has a degree in political science. Succeeding a brief stint in Television, Shilarna decided to go to Paris and chase her love for food. At Le Cordon Bleu Shilarna, got the prominent ‘diplome de cuisine’, and there was no looking back for this foodie. After coming down back to India, Shilarna has functioned in the ultimate kitchens in Mumbai and Goa. Shilarna later started a restaurant ‘Gaia’ in Goa with her husband, and is presently running a sushi delivering business in Mumbai called ‘Ninja Sushi’.
Finally, whatever you do, be diversed – that is the advice to be embarked and I can’t think of any better instruction for an entrepreneur. If you’re different, you will stand out.Then the day will arise when men will identify woman as their peer. Then, and not until then, will there be the flawless amity, the ideal union between the genders that shall result in the uppermost progress of the race.
-Yogishwini C. Solanki
