A home to chefs

There is good news for home-based female chefs in Pakistan, now they can seek help from ‘Chefling Kitchen’ which has been recently launched by Islamabad-based entrepreneur Madiha Hamid in a bid to support and guide them. You! takes a look...

Women in Pakistan struggle for work-life balance but most of them end up leaving work altogether to take care of their home and children. Some opt to venture out of their homes to practice their profession. Many end up at home due to lack of job opportunities in the country. Some hardworking women strive to create employment for them by becoming entrepreneurs thereby turning their homes into their workplaces.

Home chefs are known to do just that! They use their kitchen and skills to earn some extra cash. Mrs. Rabia based in Islamabad, is one of them. When she felt the need to gain financial independence and turn her household into a double income one, she decided to put her passion of cooking to use. She developed a brand called ‘Dastarkhan’ to provide good quality, hygienic and home cooked food to people looking for such options. Mrs. Rabia is just one of the many women who turn into home chefs and use their kitchens to become entrepreneurs and lead financially independent lives by giving better lifestyles to their children.

However, their journeys are not as easy as they sound on paper. In fact, like just about any other entrepreneurs, they deal with challenges and hurdles at every step of the way! From acquiring products at better rates to ensuring delivery systems are working well, logistics, marketing and branding, social media promotions and what not - home chefs need to be on top of the game with everything. And sometimes, that’s not possible - they need support with marketing, promotions and delivery and logistics. Getting that support was a daunting task until ‘Chefling Kitchen’ emerged on the scene.

Founded single-handedly by Madiha Hamid, an entrepreneur and a mom, Chefling Kitchen aims to digitally empower women and give them a platform to run a home-based food business. The start-up began in July 2017 with an idea to promote the skill of these women and increase the chances of making them economically independent by providing a space where they can start their own business and also expand their reach. Operating in Islamabad and Karachi at the moment, Chefling Kitchen connects the talented home-based workers to offices, organisations, events, etc. Pakistani women have a talent for cooking delicious cuisines with unique flavours, and they have interesting stories behind their recipes to share. The start-up adds value to the work by training them in various ways; teach them specific kitchen guidelines, methods of standardising recipes, essential hygiene considerations, nutrition value and health-related considerations that a home cook needs to keep in mind.

The idea of starting Chefling Kitchen came to Madiha Hamid because of her firm belief in the diverse skill set of Pakistani women pertaining to cooking. “Women in Pakistan have enough practice to cook in large quantities for families and this skill set I thought could be monetised. A lot of women, because of various social issues such as family lifecycle, cannot step out of the house. However, they have the passion to do something for themselves and add to the income of their household or to run their families. Chefling Kitchen fits perfectly to this whole scenario. All we needed was a technical solution to connect them to the estimated one billion food delivery market out there.”

Madiha informs that the chefs under their umbrella come from varied income groups, which means the initiative is empowering women at all levels. “Some of the women, who cook for Chefling Kitchen use their income to contribute towards their children’s fee, grow their business or pay their bills. We are also helping these women improve their access to technology as they enter the digital economy and we provide complete marketing to them so they have to just worry about cooking and provide the best quality food,” says Madiha.

While the Rabia of Dastarkhan, who was struggling with her business, admits that the start-up has been instrumental in guiding and developing her business idea. “My business is my passion that has given me recognition and an opportunity to work at my own convenience. I would have been nowhere had I not been guided about business appropriately. While I could definitely cook good quality food, I had no idea how to turn that skill into a business venture and this place has helped me to do that successfully. Now I know how to secure customers, acquire products at the best prices, cook and benefit from economies of scale and manage my finances in a better way,” she enthuses.

It’s amazing to see one start-up empower several entrepreneurs at the same time. These home chefs not only get more orders for their own respective businesses but also gain knowledge about how to run a business - how to market their products, how to benefit from economies of scale and how to optimise sales and make more profits. While some of these home chefs are educated and know the basics of business already, many of them learnt about all this after collaborating with Chefling Kitchen.

“Successful entrepreneurs are usually inspired by other successful entrepreneurs, especially if they are women. Likewise, adapting to the amazing idea of home cooking and selling through the Internet made my long-awaited dream of becoming a food entrepreneur, a reality,” shares Mariam Saad Ali, one of the home-based food businesses, Kitchen 19.

Hina Atif of Piquant in Karachi also has a similar view. “They say that a woman’s place is in the kitchen but the professional industry remains a male bastion. However, I was determined and the only thing that was in my way to become a successful home chef was how to market my cooking skills, which I had no sense of. With this initiative, I learnt everything a home chef must know about running a successful business,” tells Hina.

While this start-up has definitely empowered home chefs, it is also a blessing for women who need support with cooking because of their working schedules or their demanding children and families. While busy schedules may not let women cook once in a while, not everyone wants to resort to ordering food from restaurants or eating out. This is where Chefling Kitchen comes to the rescue as it serves them home cooked delicious food at their doorstep. Furthermore, its not just women who are benefiting from the idea, men are enjoying the services too. Since lots of orders come from the corporate sector, it has become a lot more economical and healthier for men to get their work lunch in the day. Humzah Yazdani, a lawyer shares with the scribe that this place is an excellent option for those who prefer having home cooked food at their offices. “It is my go-to option to feed 6-7 people at my office during lunch. I like their food as it is healthy and tasty,” he adds.

In fact, they have a nutritionist on board to provide guidance for calorie counted or no carb/no sugar meals and other healthy food. The nutritionist helps in understanding the concept of healthy eating and establishing a healthy menu. Since the Keto diet is a popular trend these days, the home chefs are trained to provide Keto meals on demand too.

While it started from Islamabad, Chefling Kitchen has now scaled to Karachi with an intention to expand in other cities of Pakistan. “The focus is also to open our culinary experiential places where tourists from across the world can dine in at the home of a Pakistani family,” informs Madiha.

“We want to reach to one million customers in next 3 years and benefit 500 plus chefs. We also want to launch our ‘Kitchen Incubator’ with commercial equipment that would give the women a safe space with high commercial standards to build their food business even further”, she adds. 

This initiative is an example of what happens when hard working women come together to support and uplift each other. While the Chefling Kitchen may be the brain child of Madiha alone, she gathered female home chefs and linked them all through one digital platform to increase the reach of their businesses. All it took was one idea, one platform and one woman to empower many others! Pakistan needs more of such efforts to provide more opportunities to women who want to be financially independent without leaving the confines of their homes.