Hey robot, what’s cooking?

Yatin Varachhi, co-founder of startup Euphotic Labs, gives customers a demo of Nosh

Frequent travel and hectic work schedules would often make it difficult for Sonica Gupta, a structural network engineer from Bengaluru, to dedicate time in the kitchen. But the Coronavirus-induced lockdowns resulting in restricted access to househelps left Gupta with little choice. "I had to cook during the lockdowns, but I really don't enjoy it [cooking] on a daily basis. It's fine as a hobby, but not as a duty." Incidentally, it's around this time that she came across Nosh, an advanced automated robot that is equipped to cook more than 120 dishes.

Sonica Gupta and her husband Abhishek Ambastha tried Nosh for a month. They said it doesn't take much space in the kitchen and has eliminated their dependency on maids and their time schedule

Developed by the Euphotic Labs, a Bengaluru startup, the artificial intelligence (AI) and mobile app-driven device enables you to cook a range of dishes, track calories, customise meals to your taste, and build new recipes. "We read about it online and visited their website. After seeing a few videos on YouTube, I felt inclined to try it out." As part of the trials organised by the lab, Gupta used the robot for a month. "It was actually easier to operate than a microwave," she laughs. "We found it very user friendly. After a demo, even a first timer can use it just fine." Gupta is currently waiting for her robot to be delivered.

Desiree Anwar, a PR professional, tries out the TinyChef a couple of months ago. What she likes about the app is that you can narrow down the search by inputting factors like ingredients, cooking time and cuisine

In an almost Back to the Futuresque fashion, Indian kitchens are undergoing a transformation. And it's not for the super rich alone. From automatic dosa-making machines and robotic roti makers to fully automated robots capable of large-scale cooking, the food space is exploding with innovations. And like most inventions, these, too, are being driven by necessity. Yatin Varachhi, co-founder of startup Euphotic Labs, remembers how cooking was a luxury that he and his wife Margi couldn't afford when their professional lives got busier somewhere around 2017. "We tried multiple cooks, but none could cut it. Getting authentic Gujarati food in Bengaluru wasn't easy," he recalls. Armed with an MTech degree from IISc and R&D experience at Analog Devices, Varachhi began exploring technology to create happiness through food. Nosh was born after three years of research, multiple prototypes and iterations. "Taste was the focus. Access to food isn't the problem, it is getting the way you want it," he explains. Automation in food is complex as every ingredient behaves differently. "Whatever judgement your vision makes is what we have automated using machine learning and AI. For instance, roasting rava is a continuous process and happens consistently. The machine needs to follow the due method, to ensure it is roasted just right, or else it [rava] will burn. It is the same with caramelising onions. The ingredients and spices should only be introduced after the onions turn golden brown," adds co-founder Amit Gupta. They tested the product the whole of last year by allowing customers to use it for a month or two. It's customer feedback that helped them fine-tune the product. "It threw up a lot of surprises. Our initial aim was to target customers in the USA, training our eyes on the million Indians craving freshly cooked home meals at their convenience. But when we tested it here, we realised Indians in India are open to adopting this technology." Thanks to the feedback, they realised that making the device touch-enabled was more convenient than installing knobs given our familiarity with smartphones.

TinyChef is a personalised kitchen management app that helps you plan, shop and cook your daily meals

The machine is about the size of a microwave and requires ingredients and spices to be filled in designated containers. There are slots for the spices, oil and water. The main ingredients such as vegetables, paneer or meat go in the tray. "You have to do the chopping. But the next step is to choose the desired item for cooking and let the machine do the hard work," he says. The NOSH costs Rs 50,000, and pre-order rates are at Rs 40,000.

Bahubali Shete

In 2016, Bahubali Shete founded TinyChef in 2016 (originally known as Klovechef) as an IoT-plus-voice interactive cooking experience. It's in 2019 that he added smartphones to the experience. In retrospect, he thinks it couldn't have happened at a better time because consequently the pandemic thrust us indoors and time-saving saving devices and meal-planning assistance gained new found-appreciation. "The idea was to become truly a ‘device agnostic' smart kitchen assistant," says Shete. The easy-to-use interface of the app makes cooking and eating at home simple and fun. Apart from answering the question of what one can eat today using the ingredients available, it also simplifies grocery order to minimise wastage.

Interestingly, an 80-year-old woman's wish triggered the creation of the app. "She said, I wish I had something like Google Maps, but in the kitchen," remembers Shete, who teamed up with celebrity chef Sanjeev Kapoor for the venture. Last year, the brand acquired food tech start-up, Zelish which makes food recipes and meal suggestions for people along with generating grocery lists directly from recipes. Shete says their research had shown that voice search queries in India were growing at 270 per cent and over 82 per cent of smartphone users were already using voice search on a regular basis. That move reporterdly led to the company's Sanjeev Kapoor Recipes becoming the number one Alexa skill in India for cooking and the default first-party solution for Amazon in the country.

PR professional Desiree Anwar used TinyChef eight months ago. "I like the fact that all the recipes are well-organised, considering there are over 20,000 listed on it. You can narrow down the search by inputting factors like ingredients, cooking time and cuisine. Even if you don't have a certain ingredient, it offers suggestions. It works well for someone like me who lives alone and has a demanding job to manage."

While Varachhi's target audience is working couples, Shete had trained his lens on working mothers and bachelors in metros. "Of course, it's not restricted to them alone. We even have people who are 60-plus who are open to the idea of having a robot in the house. However, we have also faced a certain resistance because food is so subjective. The idea of machine-cooked food will take time to familiarise. But we've made a decent headway," says Varachhi.