Madurai: Patronage for homemade food delivery service grows in city

The young and old in the city are nowadays turning towards traditional homemade food deliveryservices, indicating a conscious shift towards healthy eating habits. As obesity is a rising concern across the world, it comes as no surprise.

“A lot of people who work in corporate offices, banks, and even hospitals daily order lunch from us as the healthier choice. They mainly want to avoid junk food which they tend to eat regularly because of lack of other choices close to their workplace,” said Raghu Raman, who runs Classic Lunch, a small homemade food delivery service in Kamala Nagar.

He is currently delivering food cooked by his wife to around 30-50 customers who mostly live in the same neighbourhood. “People, especially those who eat out regularly because of constraints at home or work, are craving home-cooked food these days over Swiggy and Zomato who deliver from all kinds of hotels,” he said.

Homemade food and delivery services in Madurai are currently charging between Rs 60-150 for a single meal, mostly lunch or dinner. These services mostly serve only vegetarian food. Most of these services provide lunch consisting plain rice or sometimes variety rice like tamarind and tomato rice, chappathis for those preferring North Indian meals, boiled vegetables, poriyal, sambar, rasam and curd.

Dinner often includes rice or chappathis with a vegetable gravy, curd and salad. Some services package the meals in Tupperware containers which they collect to wash and reuse, while others are using recyclable plastic containers.

Another reason why people are increasingly preferring such services is that the food is served at a prefixed time every day, when subscribed to.

“It is not just about eating healthy. It is also about eating at a regular time every day. We have monthly subscriptions as well as a policy to cancel the food in case they want to skip a day. In just two years, we now have a customer base of around 1,500 across Madurai,” said Karthik B, director of Atchayapathra Foods, a homemade food services company in KK Nagar.

He further added that there is also a demand from customers for specific diet lunch boxes, like a special box for those who prefer millets over rice, particularly diabetics.

“Healthy eating is the need of the hour. Most people like me in corporate offices are often chained to our desks and have sedentary lifestyle. We also tend to neglect our health. Such services are encouraging healthy eating habits,” said Naresh K, who works at a private educational training institute in Simmakkal.

Source:- https://retail.economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/food-entertainment/food-services/madurai-patronage-for-homemade-food-delivery-service-grows-in-city/72138947