Ask HN: Feedback on Business Idea -- Upscale Indian food Ramen style
The details:
- You will get a small pouch of good quality Indian food with lots of vegetables.
- The food will be vacuum dried like Ramen noodles. Just add water, microwave for 2 minutes and eat. Bowl & spoon not included.
- The food will be tasty, nutritionally balanced (unlike Ramens that are very low in nutrition and very high in salt), and filling.
- Low salt, zero cholesterol, low fat, high fiber, full of vitamins, lots of vegetable protein.
- Only whole grains and organic ingredients. No meat, eggs or fish – so more eco-friendly. Could contain nuts and milk products. Absolutely no preservatives.
- Sample menu for a week (5 lunches):
o Three-grain soup with dark greens – spinach, kale and mustard
o Couscous with spicy peas, carrots and potatoes.
o Cumin rice with chick peas, green beans and red onion.
o Semolina soup with spicy lentils.
o Aromatic fenugreek leaves on a bed of cracked whole wheat.
I know that you can not give me feedback on the taste of the food without tasting it. But you can give me feedback on the business idea. What would you pay to have this kind of food delivered via USPS at work or at home 1-2-3-4-5 times a week. One dollar per meal? Two dollars? Three dollars? Four dollars? Five dollars?
I am thinking of charging $25 for 5 lunches, delivered every Monday morning via USPS Priority Mail anywhere in the USA.
1 comment
[ 3.2 ms ] story [ 15.6 ms ] threadWould I want freeze-dried, high-quality instances of specific foods delivered to the office?
Well... You have something going with the delivery option, as I don't always think to go to the grocery store and stock up on pre-prepared lunch items, and sometimes find myself at the office torn between "go out to lunch" or "work through lunch." (Ordering pizza or something and having it delivered to the office is not really part of my normal workflow for lunch).
I think to really make this work though, you'll have to deliver a food experience that's better than the frozen entrees you can get at the grocers, or are more appealing in some fashion. Maybe you could do it just on variety, but "better tasting" and/or "more nutritional" would be good.
Are you planning a subscription model, with continuous delivery until the sub is canceled, or discrete "$25 for 5" orders placed manually? Will the customer get to pick which dishes they get, or will it be decided by you? I can tell you that I'd be more likely to do this if I were picking the dishes, to avoid the possibility of getting something that I happen to dislike.
In my specific case, you'd probably only land me as a customer if you had meat containing dishes (not sure that is even practical in the model you're talking about, so maybe that's a non-starter) and maybe some Thai or Chinese dishes. But that's just happenstance. If there is a large enough market of people who want veggie Indian dishes, this seems like something that could work.