How to start a tiffin service with a team

What you need before you open

Every team that opens one of these ends up with the same list. What it adds up to is not a fact about the business — it depends on your city, on what you can find second-hand, and on how much of it somebody in the team already owns. So the useful question is not the total. It is which of these lines you can already cover between you, and that is a question you can answer in an evening.

• Bulk vessels, commercial burner, gas connection

  A double-burner commercial stove and 40-litre vessels. Buy second-hand from a restaurant-supply wholesaler and this halves.

• Insulated dabbas — 70 sets

  Three-tier steel, one set per subscriber. Take a refundable deposit of the same amount when someone signs up and this whole line comes back to you.

• Delivery hot bags and bike carrier

• FSSAI basic registration

  A nominal annual fee at the smallest tier — the smallest line in the entire build. Not optional: offices ask for the number.

• First month provisions float

  You buy the month before you collect for it. This is the number that actually decides whether you can start.

• Menu cards, stickers, WhatsApp creatives

And every month after that

• Provisions and vegetables

  Ingredients only, costed per meal at 60 subscribers taking 26 meals a month.

• Packaging — foil, covers, bags

• Petrol and bike maintenance

• Gas cylinders (2 commercial)

Licences and registrations

• FSSAI Basic Registration

  Owned by: Operations & Money

  Every country makes you register before you cook for strangers; in India the smallest tier is FSSAI Basic Registration, mandatory for any food business below the Basic turnover ceiling — which a home kitchen sits comfortably under in its first year. Apply on foscos.fssai.gov.in with an ID, an address proof and a passport photo. The annual fee is nominal and it is usually granted in 7 to 15 days. Print the certificate and put the number on your menu card, because corporate subscribers will ask for it.

• GHMC Trade Licence

  Owned by: Operations & Money

  Every municipality licenses food businesses trading from a premises; in Hyderabad that is the GHMC trade licence, issued by the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation. For a home kitchen serving under 100 dabbas, most crews register once they are trading steadily rather than on day one. Apply through the GHMC citizen portal for your circle.

• GST registration

  Owned by: Operations & Money

  Not required until turnover crosses the registration threshold for services — food service counts as a supply of service, not of goods, so the lower of the two thresholds applies. A crew at 60 subscribers crosses it inside the first year, so plan to register somewhere around month eight to ten. Corporate clients often insist on it earlier so they can claim input credit.

• Udyam (MSME) registration

  Owned by: Operations & Money

  Free, takes ten minutes on udyamregistration.gov.in with an Aadhaar. Not legally required, but it is what a bank asks for when you later want a working-capital loan.

Who does what, and what share they hold

Shares are of revenue after costs, agreed in writing before the work starts.

• Kitchen Lead

  Cooks the daily menu and owns whether 60 dabbas taste the same on day 40 as on day 1.

  42 hrs/week

  35%

• Route & Delivery Lead

  Owns the bike, the route order, and getting every dabba delivered hot before 1 pm.

  25 hrs/week

  25%

• Subscriptions & Growth

  Signs new subscribers, runs the WhatsApp group, and chases renewals before they lapse.

  20 hrs/week

  25%

• Operations & Money

  Buys provisions, logs every rupee in and out, and pays the crew on the 1st.

  12 hrs/week

  15%

The six-week plan

1. Week 1

   1. Pick who eats your dabba

      Do not say "everyone". Pick one of three, and they are genuinely different businesses: office workers in a tech corridor, who want punctuality and variety and will pay for both; students and hostellers, who want quantity at the lowest price you can survive; or a diet and home-food segment, who want low oil and a calorie count and pay the most per meal. The office band is the easiest to reach because forty subscribers can sit inside three buildings, and one late delivery is heard about by all of them. Write your choice down where the crew can see it — every later decision, from the menu to the route to the deposit, depends on it.

   2. Map a catchment you can serve hot

      Draw a 5 km ring around the kitchen and refuse to leave it. Density beats spread: 30 dabbas across two office towers is a 40-minute route, while 30 dabbas scattered across a residential suburb is a two-hour route and cold food by the end. Walk the buildings before you sell. Ask security whether a rider can go up to the floor or must hand over at the desk — that single answer changes each stop from two minutes to ten.

   3. Agree the split before you cook anything

      The Kitchen Lead carries the most hours and the most risk, which is why the suggested split gives them 35%. Decide now, in writing, what happens if someone stops showing up in month three — a 14-day notice and a clean exit is the default. Teams that skip this conversation lose their cook in week seven and have no agreement to fall back on.

2. Week 2

   1. Design a menu that survives repetition

      Your subscriber eats your food 26 times a month. Build a 14-day rotating cycle — two rice items, a dal, a dry curry, two rotis, a pickle and a sweet twice a week. Fix the cycle and print it. The single most common reason subscribers cancel in month two is not price or timing; it is that the food became predictable in a way that felt careless.

   2. Price the month, not the meal

      Work out the landed cost of one plate honestly, and include the parts nobody counts: ingredients, packaging, gas, and the fuel to deliver it. Then price the month rather than the meal — subscribers buy 26 meals, not one, and a monthly figure is what a household budgets against. Aim for a contribution margin around thirty to forty per cent, because that is the band that pays four people rather than reimbursing them. If you cannot make that margin work at a price your chosen segment will actually pay, the problem is upstream: your catchment is too spread out, or your menu is too rich for the band you picked.

   3. Know your break-even in subscribers

      Add up your monthly costs and divide by the contribution one subscriber brings in. For most office-band crews that lands somewhere around 28 to 32 subscribers to break even, and 55 to 60 before the crew is being paid properly rather than being reimbursed. Write the break-even number on the kitchen wall in something permanent. It converts a vague, anxious "are we doing okay?" into a countable thing anyone in the crew can check on their way in, and it is the single most useful piece of paper in this business.

3. Week 3

   1. Register the food business

      Apply for FSSAI Basic Registration on foscos.fssai.gov.in before you take money from a single stranger. You need an ID proof, an address proof for the kitchen, and a photograph. The fee is nominal and it takes seven to fifteen days. Start your municipal trade licence application in the same week rather than after this one lands — it is the slower of the two, and you want it in hand before you approach corporate clients, who will ask for both.

   2. Run a paid pilot week

      Ten subscribers, one week, full price, no discount. A free trial teaches you nothing because people forgive food they did not pay for. Cook, pack, deliver, and record three numbers every day: what time the last dabba landed, what came back uneaten, and what each person said when the rider handed it over. Fix the route before you add a single new subscriber.

4. Week 4

   1. Sign your first forty subscribers

      Sales happen at the building, not on Instagram. Stand at the lobby at 12:30 with twenty sample boxes and a QR code that opens a WhatsApp chat. One-week trial at full price, monthly plan pitched on day four. Expect to convert 30–40% of people who taste the food, and close to nothing from people who only see a poster.

   2. Put the whole operation on WhatsApp

      One group per building for the daily menu, one broadcast list for renewals. Post tomorrow's menu by 8 pm — it is free marketing and it cuts "what is today's food" messages to zero. Take a photo of the packed dabbas each morning. Subscribers forward those photos to colleagues, and that is where roughly a third of your growth comes from.

5. Week 5

   1. Hold the route as volume grows

      Between 40 and 70 dabbas the route becomes the bottleneck, not the kitchen. Batch by building, not by subscriber. Fix a cut-off — anything not packed by 11:15 travels on the second run. If the last delivery drifts past 1:15 pm more than twice in a week, you need a second rider before you need more subscribers.

   2. Watch churn like it is the only number

      A tiffin service does not die from bad food; it dies from quiet non-renewal. At 10% monthly churn you replace 6 of 60 and grow. At 25% you replace 15 and stand still while working harder. Call every subscriber who does not renew and ask one question: what would have made you stay? Log the answers. The pattern shows up within a month.

6. Week 6

   1. Land one corporate account

      A 15–25 dabba standing order from one office is worth more than 25 individuals: one invoice, one drop point, one renewal conversation. Approach the admin or facilities manager, not employees. They will ask for your FSSAI number and a GST invoice — which is exactly why you registered in week three.

   2. Pay the crew and close the month honestly

      Log every rupee in and out, then run the split from the signed agreement — not from memory, and not from whoever argued hardest. Pay on a fixed date. The crews that survive past month six are the ones where everybody could see the same number on the same day, including the months when that number was disappointing.

The name comes with the network

Teams that start this blueprint open as Junto Tiffins, numbered in the order they open — the first as Junto Tiffins #1, the next as Junto Tiffins #2, and yours takes whichever number is next the day you start. One name, many small teams, each with its own Pact and its own earnings. Provisions, packaging and dabbas come through network suppliers at network prices.

• A name that compounds

  You open as Junto, numbered in the order teams open. Customers who trust one team trust the next, and every team that opens adds to what the name is worth.

• Suppliers who take your call

  Procurement contacts the network has already negotiated with. You buy at network prices from day one, not at walk-in prices.

• Shared services at network rates

  A call centre that answers your customers, and the back-office pieces no three-person team should have to build alone — run once for the whole network.

Prefer your own name? Opt out when you start. Everything else — the blueprint, the Pact, the ledger — works exactly the same.

Questions people ask

How much does it cost to start a tiffin service?

Five lines: vessels and a commercial burner, seventy insulated dabba sets, delivery bags, the FSSAI registration, and a first-month provisions float. The float is the largest of them and the one people forget entirely, because it does not feel like equipment — you buy a month of ingredients before you collect a month of subscription, and that gap has to come from somewhere. The dabba sets largely come back to you through subscriber deposits. The registration is the smallest line on the list by a wide margin.

Do I need an FSSAI licence for a home tiffin service?

Yes. Any food business needs at least FSSAI Basic Registration, which carries a nominal annual fee at the smallest turnover tier and is granted in about seven to fifteen days through foscos.fssai.gov.in. Office and corporate subscribers routinely ask for the number before they sign up, so it is worth having in hand before you start selling rather than while you are already taking orders.

How many subscribers do I need to break even?

Around 28 to 32 subscribers covers ingredients, packaging, gas and fuel — that is the point where the kitchen stops costing the crew money. A crew of four starts earning meaningfully at 55 to 60 subscribers, and the jump between those two numbers is mostly a routing problem rather than a demand one: subscribers clustered in three buildings are a morning's work, and the same number spread across a city is not.

How far can I deliver and still keep the food hot?

Keep every subscriber inside a 5 km ring of the kitchen, and prefer density over distance. Thirty dabbas inside two office towers is a 40-minute route; thirty dabbas spread across a suburb is two hours and cold food at the end. If your last delivery regularly lands after 1:15 pm, add a rider before you add subscribers.

What do people actually split in a tiffin crew?

Revenue after costs, in fixed percentages agreed in writing before the first meal is cooked. A common shape is 35% to the Kitchen Lead, 25% each to the rider and the person selling subscriptions, and 15% to whoever buys provisions and keeps the books. Fixing this early is what stops the argument in month three.