MBA students to start roadside food venture

It will not be long before the people of Ahmedabad will be able to choose from an array of rice dishes at affordable prices, as MBA students of the Amity Global Business School (AGBS) prepare to launch a roadside venture, offering exclusively catered food items made of rice. While four students of the institute — Shriti Rao, Chintan Sheth, Akruti Hundia and Ankita Sharma — will be offering more than 25 food items in their menu, they will use a modified motor van as a mobile vending venture.

“This idea was conceived from my personal experience in the city. I had yearned in vain to eat food made of rice in Ahmedabad,” Rao, who originally hails from Hyderabad, said while speaking about the background of the venture.

“Soon after I arrived here, I began hunting everywhere for good food made from rice. While the rice items that are served at restaurants are very costly, one could hardly find hygienic, delicious and affordable rice food in the city. In our survey, we found that there are only around 10 varieties of food items made from rice that are available in the city,” she said.

“While it is indispensable to come up with a business plan as a part of our curriculum, we decided not to limit this to just a hypothetical plan. We decided to set the business rolling on full scale,” Rao said.

Though the group is using a mobile van for their roadside venture, the setup will be stationed at one particular place. “We will identify the perfect spot and operate only from that area every day for the initial phase. The idea of keeping it in a mobile van is not to occupy the space throughout the day, but to vacate it as soon as working hours are over,” Sheth said.

The students plan to begin with venture capital of Rs1.5 lakh for the initial phase. “We will be starting with just one van at this stage, but we are confident of expanding the size of our operations and increasing the number of food items along with time,” Sheth said.