With a mission to empower home chefs, Reshma Suresh established Tocco. It allows them to highlight their culinary talents through homemade regional delicacies and celebrate local flavors. Tocco offers people in their 50s to discover and improve their culinary talent. Starting with just Rs 5000, Tocco has a turnover of more than Rs 1 crore in 2024.
| Startup Name | Tocco (The Orange Candy Co) |
| Founders | Reshma Suresh and Annu Suresh |
| Date of Commencement | 2023 |
| Industry | Food |
| Company Classification | Retail |
| Headquarters/based-in | Mumbai, Maharashtra, India |
| Idea | To serve regional delicacies while giving a platform to chefs to showcase their talent. |
| Investments | Rs 5000 |
| Revenue | Rs 1 crore as of 2024 |
| Number of Customers | 5000+ |
| Number of Employees | 16+ chefs |
Competitors: BlackCarrot
The Problem: Why Does This Matter?
In 2012, after moving to Mumbai to work at an AI/healthcare startup, eating out was an everyday scenario for Reshma Suresh (just like most of us) an MBA graduate from IIT Bombay. She was missing Keralian dishes and realized that she was not the only person craving hometown dishes.
She often brings spices and banana chips from her home when she visits Kochi. But her PCOS made her look for healthier, home-cooked and authentic regional food. Unfortunately, she cannot find any such place in Mumbai.
Just like Reshma, many people living in different cities, away from their hometown, often crave home-cooked food, which is difficult to get in restaurants and other places.
The Solution: Tocco (The Orange Candy Co)
In 2021, Annu (Reshma’s sister) living in Bengaluru and Reshma started selling traditional Kerala meals experience boxes on weekends. Later, she started making and selling banana chips through her brand MeenGurry Memories (meen gurry means fish curry). Using her amma and ammamma’s (grandmother’s) generations-old recipe, she made perfect, thin and crispy banana chips.
Managing work with her startup was not easy and she realized the taste of her mother’s handmade dishes cannot be replicated. So, here comes the idea! Instead of making food herself, why not create a platform where chefs like her mom Uma and Aunt Lakshmi could sell their dishes directly.
This will not only give the people a taste of their home but will also give financial independence to the cooks.
Lesser-Known Fact: Uma and Lakshi were semi-finalists in Mazhavil Manorama in 2019.
Later in 2022, Reshma quit her job to dedicate her time completely towards Tocco. She then added more than 16 chefs to the platform and expanded the platform in different cities including Bengaluru, Mumbai, and Kerala.
Tocco offers snacks like chips (banana, jackfruit), shankarpali (sweet snack), spice powder like rasam podi (spice powder), homemade curd chili, and pickles along with many other items.
Thus, in 2023, Reshma started Tocco with just Rs 5000. Now, they have a team of more than 16 chefs (both male and female). Most of them are in their 50s. The name was the symbol for Reshma’s nostalgic memories related to orange candies.
Tocco has been a life-changer for Uma and her sister Lakshmi who have been on trips to Goa and Dubai through their earnings with Tocco. Similarly, Tocco is not just giving us an authentic regional taste but also a platform for middle-aged people to start over and achieve their dreams.
Business Model: How Do They Make Money?
Started with just Rs 5000, Tocco has a turnover of more than Rs 1 crore in 2024. Working in healthcare startups for more than 10 years, she has good experience in healthcare and healthcare tech. Moreover, working in startups in this field, she has a clear picture of what it takes to start and run a startup.
Tocco ensures the following is maintained for the dishes they serve:
- All products are handmade and preservative-free.
- Must be crafted in small batches
- Dishes should be healthy and have a shelf life of at least 30 days.
- They should be local or regional specialties.
- Samples of dishes are sent for group tastes, changes are suggested and then the dish should be onboarded.
How to become a Tocco chef?
If you want to become a chef at Tocco, you must apply on the website. Your top 3 dishes will be selected and discussed, and then a decision will be made.
Chefs who have their own brand name, get the following services from Tocco:
- Helps chefs who have brands of their own in branding, labelling, and packaging.
- They train them, inspect their kitchens and help them in getting an FSSAI certification (if they don’t have).
Ordering process: Order received->sent to the chef->dish is prepared->order is shipped.
Order packaging, shipping, customer care, and management are done through platform.
Challenges/Struggles: What Roadblocks Are They Facing?
Their biggest challenge according to Reshma is to convince their customers to wait for their orders. They make everything in small batches and customers expect next-day delivery, which becomes challenging due to overflowing orders.
Future Vision: What’s Next?
Currently, Tocco processes more than 1,000 orders/month and are planning to add more chefs and expand their operations. Also, Reshma has set up banana chips manufacturing facility in Kochi. She divides her time between Mumbai and Kochi.
Key Takeaways: Why Should Users Care?
Putting our knowledge to use in what we are passionate about surely gives good results. From Reshma, we can learn how to follow our passion, recognize people with the same dreams, bring them onboard and rule the world.
Image Credits: Tocco Instagram, MeenGurry Memories,
