Interview with Buddy's Kitchen founders Humera and Khezan Baig

Humera and Khezan Baig are examples of how friendships and common interests can help start a new business and run it successfully. They run The Buddy’s Kitchen and deliver food items to individual clients, cater to parties, corporate events, get togethers, college functions and more. Let us hear more about The Buddy’s Kitchen from them.

Humera and Khezan Baig

1. How did Khezan Baig and Humera start the Buddy’s Kitchen?

Khezan Baig and Humera worked together in a company in Royapettah. During breaks, they always talked about the newest food items they tasted. Both they and their families were foodies. Meanwhile, Humera’s kid was in 10^th std and she was under pressure managing both work and household. She was looking for alternate work options and discussed with Khezan about it. 

Their love for food and endless discussions about the various new food joints that they would like to try led them to start their very own food business. When a common passion for food was paired with an incredible friendship, the outcome was not anything less than extraordinary!! That's how The Buddy's Kitchen came into existence.  

In February 2020, Humera’s cousin sister organized an event called Big Picnic at St. Ebbas School. Humera set up a stall in the event and sold prawn biryani, halwa poori, badam halwa, and naan. Khezan’s friend liked the badam halwa a lot. After the event, he placed an order for Badam Halwa and that was the first order for Buddy’s Kitchen in March 2020. 

 

2. How did you initially start your operations?  

Initially, the food items were made in Humera’s home kitchen. We were new to this business and didn't know what kind of response we will get. So instead of starting big, we took a small step and started delivering food from my kitchen. But, the children would come and taste the cooked chicken and smell. So, it was not possible to exclusively focus on the customers. With time it got difficult to manage the orders from home and we had to have a professional setup. So, we rented a house in Royapettah and it now operates as our cloud kitchen. Currently, we have 4 women employees in the cloud kitchen.

 3. Did you have to get any license to run a food business? How did you go about that?  

Yes. We have a trade licence from the Chennai Corporation and a food licence from FSSAI.  

4. What are the popular food items and beverages in your menu?

All the items on our menu are unique. It's home style cooking and won't be available easily outside. Still to name a few, we would say the Zaffrani Phirni, Badam Ka Halwa, Dhuandaar Chicken Tikka, Mutton Paya, Chicken Cutlets, Rose Milk.... and the list would be endless. The most notable thing about our food is the importance we give to hygiene and freshness. We also offer ready-to-cook food items.  

We make maximum sales during the Ramzan season with the Iftar packs. We were getting a lot of enquiries and requests for single servings of biryani which is not on our menu. Since this was not practically possible every day, we now serve single portions of Mutton and Chicken Biryani every Sunday for lunch. We advertise this on our Instagram page and Whatsapp groups also. Orders can be placed on WhatsApp or Instagram. New customers still order from us through Insta and the Google reviews also get us a lot of business.

Haleem

5. How do you handle cooked food wastage and raw food materials leftover at your side?  

The biggest challenge that any food business owner may face is the wastage of food. In our case we have converted this to an advantage. Since we cook only against pre-orders, our wastage is almost nothing. As far as raw food items are concerned, we don't stock anything. Our procurement of meat and vegetables is on a day-to-day basis, so there is no wastage.

Ready-to-Cook cutlets and other items

 6. Did both of you take up any special training for cooking?  

No, there was no special training involved. Just the training that I (Humera) got at my Maamiar house 😂 (mother-in-law’s house).

7. Are there any challenges you face in decision making because Buddy’s Kitchen has 2 founders? How do you solve them?

We always discuss and put up our ideas before any decision making and finalize on whatever is suitable for the moment. There are no challenges or clashes as there is a very good understanding between us.

8. What advice would you like to give to someone who wants to start a food business?

We are still learning and too young to give any advice. But, would definitely like to tell anyone who wants to do something new, always follow your heart!!

Phone numbers: 88257 18815, 82481 78900  

Insta Handle: the_buddys_kitchen