With practiced hand movements, Suchitra Mohan folds the fresh flatbread, then slides it into a pot with a spicy curry sauce. The dish is called Kothu Parotta, she explains, and is eaten in southern India. Mohan does cook in her own kitchen, but not for herself or her family, but for paying customers. A delivery driver will pick up and deliver the food later. The Berlin start-up mediates the orders home meal.
Mohan is an independent entrepreneur originally from New Delhi, the capital of India. She has lived in Berlin-Schmargendorf for six years. However, she was not always a cook. Just a few years ago, Mohan worked as a business analyst for global companies. Then she had her child.
Traditional cuisine for Indian Berliners
“I took a break to focus on my family,” says Mohan. The son is now seven years old, but Suchitra Mohan decided against going back to her old job.
Instead, she now prepares traditional dishes based on family recipes. Most of her customers come from India themselves, she says, and many of them order regularly.
Martin Andreas Schmidt is responsible for ensuring that every dish ends up on the right plate. In 2020, together with Mario Dugonik, he founded the start-up Homemeal, which customers use to order via the smartphone app. Delivery is the next day, currently only within the S-Bahn ring.
The app isn’t just about Indian food. For example, a man offers beef-filled arepas, round corn cakes from Venezuela. And a confectioner from Tuscany prepares Italian cakes. Another vendor has Indonesian rice dishes with chicken and fish.
A photo shows the respective chef, and there is a short profile like in a social network. Schmidt says about 120 small business owners use Homemeal altogether. He wants it to be significantly more.
The start-up recently completed a round of financing. With the capital they have collected, Schmidt and Dugonik want to expand to other major cities such as Munich and Hamburg.
Emigrated to Asia to box
“We don’t originally come from gastronomy,” says Schmidt. The electrical engineer worked as a department manager in the development department of a special manufacturer. But then he asked himself what else life had to offer.
“I emigrated to Southeast Asia to learn boxing.” In Kuala Lumpur he founded his first start-up, a platform for sports offers.
Then Schmidt moved to Berlin, where he met Dugonik. The Romanian was a professional track and field athlete and movement therapist, then traveled the world for 15 months. The two globetrotters had the idea for the platform at the beginning of the corona pandemic.
When the restaurants had to close, many acquaintances lost their jobs in the catering industry, says Schmidt. At the same time, other people were working from home and ordering from delivery services. This is how the idea came about to connect both sides via an app.
But the implementation turned out to be not so easy, after all, gastronomy in Germany is strictly regulated. Together with experts, the founders developed a kind of blueprint that hobby cooks can use to register.
Strict standards and controls by the regulatory authorities
Commercially used food must be strictly separated from private supplies, explains Schmidt. That means: two separate refrigerators, as well as separate kitchen utensils.
The food supervisory authority of the regulatory office controls compliance. Before delivery, says Dugonik, Homemeal also checks the quality of the dishes again.
The start-up uses disposable packaging, but would like to switch to a sustainable system. Like Suchitra Mohan’s food, it comes from India. There, special deliverers, the dabbawala, deliver food in metal containers. The principle is similar to the German Henkelmann, which miners used to transport their food with.
