“Our food is repeatable and we want to replace the kitchen”: Ankit Nagori, CureFoods

A chat with the founder of CureFoods over the launch of EatFit’s D2C ordering platform and onboarding Varun Dhawan as an investor.

CureFoods’ latest investor is an actor who knows how to shake a leg and lift a few weights. Varun Dhawan has come on board as an investor and as brand ambassador for EatFit. Ankit Nagori, the co-founder of CureFit (which eventually rebranded to CultFit), is now focussed on running CureFoods.

Dhawan coming on board also coincides with the launch of CureFoods’ mobile-first platform for its cloud kitchen EatFit. The platform is a D2C ordering platform which sells healthy food.

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CureFoods is a company which has around 15 cloud kitchen brands in its fold. Some of these brands include EatFit, Juno’s Pizza, Canteen Central, the Great Indian Khichdi, among others. CureFoods also recently acquired majority stake in beverage company Frozen Bottle.

Over a video call with Ankit Nagori, and ambassador cum investor Varun Dhawan, Nagori tells us about the brands under the CureFoods umbrella. Some of the brands have been designed by the company - some have been acquired and many are in partnership with other brands. Nagori also adds that some of these brands have either a regional or a national presence.

“Whenever I invest money in a venture, I invest money in the person. I’ve invested in Ankit (Nagori) to create a brand which aims to provide food which is sustainable and nutritious for the working class of India,” says Dhawan.

Dhawan recalls earlier when he would visit his Father (director David Dhawan) on set, his father would be ordering healthy food such as khichdi, but there was also unhealthy food - like samosas, pav bhaji, etc that people would be consuming.

“People’s habits would keep becoming more and more unhealthy and if you don’t check yourself, it will be bad for your health. That’s what Ankit is doing with CureFoods. There are different varieties of food like khichdi, pizza, and they’re all cooked home-style and are nutritious,” says Dhawan. He reveals that there is an ad campaign coming up in July around the same time that the Asia Cup is slated to air.

He adds that its sustainable for the working class of the country and the company wants to help people indulge in different types of food without the guilt of being unhealthy while eating it.

Nagori tells us that the conversations around Dhawan coming on board as an investor have been ongoing for a while and they wanted to onboard someone who takes a keen interest in health and fitness.

“Our main target audience are people who just started going to work, young adults who may be living alone in cities,” says Nagori over a video call.

“We are designed to be a repeatable exercise. All food aggregator companies are designed for a certain number of frequencies every month - in most cases they are not designed for daily use. No customer can order a pizza everyday,” says Nagori.

“We are using the word repeatable because we want to replace the kitchen. For the younger generation working long hours, living busy lives in cities, ordering in makes sense,” he mentions.

Nagori’s CureFoods aims to cater to people in both categories - those who want to order ‘repeat’ foods that resembles home cooked food, as well as to those who want entertainment food items like pizzas or burgers.

In addition to the variety of food, CureFoods also offers meal plans across a variety of categories like salads, khichdi, rice bowls, Indian thalis and so on.

In this market, CureFoods competes with another well known brand - Rebel Foods. Rebel Foods is the parent company of brands such as Faasos, Behrouz Biryani, Ovenstory Pizza, Mandarin Oak, and more. Nagori laughingly admits that at his home, many times his family ends up ordering Faasos and Behrouz Biryani.

“All of these companies are creating a market that we can operate in. CureFoods’ brands will fill in slots for different cravings - maybe late night, maybe an evening snack or maybe even a lunch at an office. All of us are creating a delivery market together.”

He adds that the company’s real competition is people eating badly cooked food, unhealthy food, etc. All of CureFoods’ brands assure customers that the preparation processes are standardised and hygienic and Nagori asks the consumers to outsource the job of cooking to them.

“Our meal plans were in high demand during the pandemic when people were forced to work and learn from home. Housewives found it easier to outsource the job of cooking to us. Most of these families were double income families so they could afford to do so,” he recalls.

Nagori adds that unlike other food delivery platforms, EatFit or any of the CureFoods brands don’t want to make promises related to delivery timings. “We calculate 15 minutes that it takes to prepare the food and the rest of the time to deliver is based on an estimate we get from Google Maps,” he signs off.

Nagori says EatFit’s is a mobile first platform which can be accessed via a browser on an android or an iOs device. The company also plans to launch an app soon to make ordering easier. Users can also access EatFit via a desktop website to place an order for food.

CureFoods’ last advertising efforts were a campaign from a month ago with actress and influencer Mithila Palkar. She stars in a series of ads for EatFit, where she emphasises on how healthy the pizzas are.