With approximately 22 million people using Indian Railways daily, train journeys in India are more of an adventure than romance. Getting quality food on trains is always an arduous task, as IRCTC doesn’t run pantry cars in most of the trains, leaving the passengers with the option to either carry food from home or survive on the food that hawkers bring along. Becoming the victim of this scenario himself on an overnight journey and foreseeing the huge market for it, Amit Deep Kumar founded KhanaGaDi in January 2015 to deliver delicious quality meals to passengers right on their seats. Based in Jaipur, the company is currently operational in around 200 major stations in India.

KhanaGaDi’s online ordering and food delivery in train works 24x7, covering all meals, snacks, main course and breakfast items with over 25000 options to choose from. The company offers a vast selection of cuisines like North Indian, South Indian, Bengali, Gujarati, Punjabi, Rajasthani, Marwari and much more. Each serving is delivered in a specially designed, right size food platter

that comes with the comfort of hot food and easy to eat on-board.

Taking on-the-go-Internet issue by its horns, KhanaGaDi has developed an ATI that helps it track the status of the train live

The passengers can now order quality food from any of the stations using the website, mobile app (not only does the app deliver good food, but also offer some cool features like Check PNR Status, Check Live Train Status, Call Railway Helpline numbers directly from app), customer service helpline or just through WhatsApp mentioning the PNR number and the train number, and selecting station, food item and payment mode. KhanaGaDi then connects vendor and the passenger to take the deal ahead. The vendors are equipped with seller app where they can manage their orders without using a laptop or desktop. KhanaGaDi also does a follow-up call to check if the food was dispatched and delivered to the respective passengers.It is for the first time that any company has launched an iOS app for train food delivery segment, which is a must have for a traveller to kill his hunger.

Delivering Consistency

Leveraging his past experience in technology, food and designing, Amit crafted KhanaGaDi as a food designing company that locks

technology to offer best service. However, challenges like aligning small and micro vendors to a quality process to get good and hygienic meals, good packaging and quality servings had been playing the devil’s card until KhanaGaDi nullified these with intensive orientation and training to creating more robust logistic process. “Costumer wants to have an experience which is consistent in terms of hygiene and packaging and even how the delivery guy arrives matters nowadays,” says Amit Deep Kumar, CEO, KhanaGaDi. To overcome ethnical difference of taste, it does not use a lot of coconut, garlic or leafy vegetables so that South Indian and North Indian can order from the same templates. Taking on-the-go-Internet issue by its horns, KhanaGaDi has developed an ATI that helps it track the status of the train live.

Entering the Niche Markets

With surging number of start-ups targeting food & beverage industry, KhanaGaDi bets them on technology expertise and vendor feasibility as their forte, which helps it grow at 20-22 percent month-on-month. Till date, the company has raised an undisclosed amount of early stage funding from 50K Ventures Hyderabad. KhanaGaDi is looking to diversify its offerings and provide food for diabetic and cardiac patients who do not have many options in meal while travelling. The company’s next five years plan consists of expansion to 400 stations targeted at serving about 50000 meals per day.