Bangalore: What do you end up doing when you don't like the food at your college, when you're bored of it or when you find it unhygienic? Go to a food joint outside college? Meet Aruj Garg, an alumni of the National Law School, Bangalore, who took to making his own food and selling it on campus when he got sick of the on campus food. Aruj, who started off thinking he'll become a law professional, is now the full-time owner of 'Bhukkad' - his food joint at his alma mater.
Speaking to IBNLive, Chandigarh boy Aruj said Bhukkad was a solution to the daily food woes of college students. "In college, food was a big issue. It was almost an every day challenge for people to figure out where their next meal was going to be. One easily gets bored of mess food and the eateries, which lined up outside our campus, weren't up to the mark. So at that time the motivation was to solve this problem by starting an eatery which provided an option which was tasty and yet light on the pocket. It was just a local problem, Bhukkad was trying to deal with," he said.
Aruj was in the third year of his BA LLB (Hons) when he started Bhukkad in May, 2011. Since then he has added much to the menu and now offers sandwiches, salads, pastas, burgers, milkshakes and smoothies to food lovers. "Our focus has been to remove the processed elements from our fast food and prepare things using raw materials which are natural or naturally produced. Not only does it remove the harmful substances which enter your body (even though permitted as food preservatives) it also adds a lot of nutritive value to your body," Aruj said. He also claims to serve the 'world's best mint lemonade'.
What started off as a solution to on campus food, is now building up to be a food chain, also catering to food delivery for small gatherings. "We are keen to expand our operations and open more outlets. The road to finding outlets has been riddled with a lot of factors which have been outside our control. However, we are continuing our search for the perfect property. In the meanwhile, we are working on a bulk ordering menu to cater to small office gatherings, get-togethers and events. This will be much wider than our current outlet menu and will follow our philosophy of making food only using natural ingredients," Aruj told IBNLive.
From being a law student to coming up with Bhukkad has not been an easy task for Aruj. For a student pursuing law from one of the best law schools in the country, his family gets the jitters when he talks of shifting to a food business halfway through his course. "When I first floated the idea to my parents in January 2011, they obviously had some reservations. At that time since college was still underway, they were concerned about my studies. I am very fortunate to have very broad minded parents as the only condition they imposed was that I don't fail in any of my courses," Aruj said adding that he did complete his law school without failing in any of his courses.
"I wanted to work for McKinsey for a couple of years before I set out to work on Bhukkad fully. That didn't work out and after interacting with a number of people, my parents and especially my mentor, Ankur Singla, I was convinced that this is something I will continue as a full time calling after college as well," he added.
What's unique about Bhukkad is that Aruj does not sponsor the use of artificial food like cheese and ketchups, trying to make every food as natural as possible. However, that's also a challenge as Aruj explains, "We don't serve options for cheese, we don't provide ketchup. Some of these decisions have been taken due to the price points we are in. For example, we can serve a natural ketchup brand which does not use any preservatives, but then that would not work out for us economically. Slowly, we are trying to figure a way around some of these problems. One option could be to charge a lot for these options to ultimately discourage the customer from taking them up which would help us achieve our ultimate objective of serving food which loves people back."
Once a law student, Aruj, seems to be overwhelmed with the response to Bhukkad and does not see himself following the law stream, at least in the near future. "No law for now. My guess would be that it's going to stay this way, at least in the near future," says an optimistic Aruj.
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