Post Author
Shraddha Khare is a housewife who turned into an entrepreneur and started her business Instant Rasoi.
Entrepreneurship has been a fantastic and life-changing journey for Shraddha Khare to accomplish what she enjoys and has made a meaningful contribution to the world.
Shraddha Khare made everyone believe that when challenges come, it brings new opportunities. With a new start, she achieved heights, became an example of an ideal mother and a strong woman who is passionate and enthusiastic with food, and that is how she has created many instant foods recipe mixes.
In conversation with Icy Tales, the indelible success story and the journey of Shraddha Khare.
Q) The pandemic has changed the course of many lives and businesses. How did it impact you and your business?
Shraddha Khare – The first lockdown treated us very well. This is because when the whole world was in lockdown Instant Rasoi was working & preparing orders for the US company. My staff were all living together under the same shelter, as we were not allowed to go out.
But the second lockdown was difficult. My company Instant Rasoi is majorly export-oriented. Our major revenue comes from the export part of the business. The supply chain of the company was hit badly.
The ocean fret has gone six to seven times high. The buyers in the market are very reluctant to purchase the product because the rates of the products and the landing cost are higher.
Q) What was your childhood like? What did you think you would become when you grew up back then?
Shraddha Khare – As the eldest in my family, I have always been at an advantage. As a child, I wished to be an actress and live a glamorous life. When I visited a factory in Malanpur, Gwalior, my dream shifted to opening a fan factory. When I mentioned the idea to my father, he didn’t seem to be interested. Then I decided to pursue an MBA and pursue a career in the corporate world.
My working life took a turn; whichever company I joined used to get shut down. Following this, a major turning point in my life occurred when I decided to become an entrepreneur and pursue my childhood dream of owning my business. Living my childhood dream gives a very special feeling and new experience such as developing leadership skills.
Q) Your company Instant Rasoi, how did you come up with such an idea? Any particular reason for the name?
Shraddha Khare – When people travel throughout the country and beyond, it is always difficult to find vegetarian food. India is best known for its vegetarian cuisine. When it comes to vegetarian food, people who travel abroad do not have many options. Even if they get vegetarian options to eat, the taste is very blended, and we eat for the sake of eating it, but then there was no satisfaction.
From such experiences, I came up with the idea of opening Instant Rasoi, where we can make certain recipes that have a longer shelf life, and it is a ready-to-make food for the people who love travelling and travels a lot. The main idea was to make Rasoi for everyone where they can make an instant meal for themselves.
In instant Rasoi, we do various things. Have our cloud kitchen, we are official food partners with Yatra.com, we export food. We are currently focusing on making idle dosa batters and the dry coconut chutney and sambhar.
Q) What is your favourite thing about cooking?
Shraddha Khare – For many, cooking is stressful, but cooking is a stress buster for me. Whenever there is a lot of stress, I go to my kitchen, pick the toughest dish and start preparing. This diverts my mind from whatever is happening around me.
I experiment with a lot of cuisines. There are many recipes I try, like, Thogail dish, with a variety of chutney. I have even worked on various south Indian cuisines. I love everything about cooking.
Q) What is the one thing you always tell yourself when you feel a little low on motivation?
Shraddha Khare – We all are human beings, we have ups and downs in our lives, and both phases in our life come and go. It is like a cycle where good and bad times are part and parcel of life. I have gone through the toughest times of my life. I made myself understand that bad and good times are a part of life, it will come.
At times even I get very gloomy and upset since the business scenarios are not up to the mark because generating revenue is quite difficult, and to run a business, we need revenue. But focusing only on the negative part won’t help to move ahead.
I always think this is the problem; we need to find the solutions to it. I believe in finding solutions to the problem rather than cribbing about the negativity. I believe in moving ahead. We entrepreneurs focus on new opportunities and always keeps our mind open to do new things.
My main motive is to keep moving ahead, come what may. During the lockdown, our revenue generation was decreasing due to yatra.com was not gaining much business. From that, I focused on alternative solutions to generate revenue, the idea of Cloud kitchen, and preparing idle and dosa batters dry coconut chutney and sambhar came into existence. After all, I also wanted to earn bread and butter to survive. Instant Rasoi is like my third child.
Q) So there would have been a journey full of ups & downs behind all your success, could you tell us something about your journey?
Shraddha Khare – For the past seventeen years I was a housewife. These years my life was surrounded by my husband, daughters, and family. Life gives you a lot surprises, and above that, as an Indian woman, you are always taught to take care of your family.
As an individual, I always gave my best and tried doing justice to my marriage. Still, it didn’t turn out to be a beautiful journey. I decided to shift from my husband’s place to my mother’s place. Then life gave me big challenges to face.
I always wanted to give my daughters a beautiful life, and I want them to respect the institution of marriage. My daughters should have high self-esteem and always look up to me and believe that our mother took care of us and gave us a beautiful life.
Here I decided to start my own company. However, starting something of your own requires a lot of funding. I found my ways to earn, and I started with the cloud kitchen. I collaborated with yatra and became an official food partner.
A competition was run by the United States of America department in which 575 women entrepreneurs from India were selected. It was a two-year program with lots of competition. We did a presentation and a pitch. I was very fortunate that I got selected as one of the top 3 women entrepreneurs and got a chance to represent India in the USA state department. I was there in California for a month and learned various entrepreneurs skills from Mr Mani Krishnan, owner of Shastha Foods California.
I had the will to do and achieve something, God helped me throughout my journey. The food that I make at Instant Rasoi is colour-free, preservative-free.
Q) What is the one piece of advice you would like to give other women trying to make it on their own?
Shraddha Khare – The first and foremost thing that I always tell is to love and respect yourself first. In moving ahead in the journey of life, don’t do injustice to yourself. Stay true to yourself first. My advice would be in the process of achieving success, be independent and strong, making your own money & staying confident while trusting your ideas. Start doing this, and everything is possible.
Q) Any two things that you have learned through all the experiences in life?
Shraddha Khare – Throughout my life, I have learned to be an independent and strong woman. I learned that we should not focus on the negative part or feel depressed by what others tell us. Believe in yourself, don’t get demotivated and move ahead with strong willpower. I truly believe in the quote ‘Even Impossible says I’m Possible.’ The only reason I said this is because I have gone through difficulties, and I have emerged. Relationships are important but not at the cost of self-respect.
Good and bad times will come, but staying focused on the work is the major key that will help you grow and become a better version of yourself. Always find alternatives. If a particular thing is not working, shift your thoughts to find the next solution or alternative. As an entrepreneur, solution-based thinking is must keep growing and generating revenue continuously.
Q) Which is one of your best memories about being a part of KBC?
Shraddha Khare – My favourite memory from KBC was meeting a couple of people from the same team. The team of Sony and the people on the team were very cooperative and supportive. The best memory was meeting Amitabh Bachhan, who is a very humble and motivating person.
Q) Knowing what you know now, is there anything you would have done differently when starting your kitchen?
Shraddha Khare – The technologies have advanced when adding preservatives to the food, but I choose to keep my food natural and preservative-free. My idea is to keep the natural nutrient alive to be eatable to all age groups. I can also use advanced technologies, but I prefer to keep the food natural.
Q) How would you define success as per your experience?
Shraddha Khare – For me, success is in every small thing. I first started cloud kitchen without any fancy gadgets. Starting my business in my kitchen, because no kitchen can be as clean as our home kitchen, delivering home-cooked and good quality food to my customers is a success. Generating small revenues, people appreciating my products is a great success to me.
Shraddha Khare is an emerging women entrepreneur who knows her goals and how to achieve them with small steps of success. She believes in taking calculated risks and knows how to deal with failure. Indeed she has the entrepreneurship skills to lead a successful business.
Last Updated on by Himani Rawat