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MasterChow, a popular brand of Asian sauces and noodles, was a Covid baby. Vidur and his then co-founders had to halt operations at their restaurant Wok Me that they began in 2016. Wok Me saw an expansion to six outlets by 2020 but needed a new way to stay afloat during the Covid-induced lockdown.
The restaurant was built on an “Asian Subway Model” – where a customer could come in, pick their rice or noodles, add on meats, vegetables and sauces and make a dish. MasterChow already had a recipe for their sauces in place, and using the Wok Me database, they began to provide remotely for their customers’ Chinese food fix.
Now, instead of making their way into the restaurant, people could order the packaged sauces and noodles at home and make the dish themselves. And so, MasterChow was founded in 2020 by Sidharth Madan, Vidur Kataria and Radhika Mittal.
When venturing into providing bottled sauces, Vidur knew that their biggest competition would come from amateur chefs who liked to cook: “They’re our greatest critics” So, instead, the focus became creating a product that made it easy to cook for someone who doesn’t have too high a skill level.
A Story Of Resilience
After a few initial deliveries and positive feedback, Vidur turned his home into a micro-factory. Bottles were being sanitised and washed in a dishwasher, and he and his family filled and labelled them. “We even convinced a Domino's rider to be our delivery guy by paying him 10 rupees more per delivery.” Through a small circle of loyal customers, the menu soon reached about 1,500 people, and orders started to pour in.
From there, they onboarded a consultant to help them understand e-commerce and went from distributing from their website to Amazon. From Amazon to BigBasket and BigBasket to Q-commerce, the journey went on. “Since our products are an impulse purchase, it becomes important to make ourselves available on Q-com.” MasterChow’s omni channel approach makes them available in about 2,000 stores offline, but 95% of their business still happens online.
Paradigm Shifts
Post-Covid, Vidur tells us, there was a shift in the mindset of people who were more aware of what they wanted to eat and didn't mind preparing it themselves. “There is also a change in the knowledge they have and want of the products they consume.” And MasterChow’s marketing communication of keeping things authentic works in their favour.
Recently, the brand faced negative feedback due to its Chowmein Cup Noodles. Around 20,000 boxes had flooded the market, but it was not a perfect product. If you kept the noodles in the hot water for more than two minutes, they would become a soggy mush. However, the instructions on the box said it would take three minutes to cook.
A bad product can greatly hamper a brand, and the MasterChow team went back to the drawing board, understood where they went wrong, and relaunched Chowmein 2.0 after four months. “For that campaign, I thanked customers for bringing to our attention just how bad our product was. I then asked them to give us another shot with our relaunch.”
Acing The Product Development Game
Anyone who spends a decent amount of time on social media must have stumbled upon chilli oil. Chilli oil noodles have become all the rage owing to their aesthetic appeal and ease of making. Creators would add chopped garlic and ginger, along with some spices, to a pot of hot oil, and voila!
MasterChow capitalised on that and positioned themselves as connoisseurs of chilli oil. “It’s important to understand cultural change and what people are getting into. There was a time when Korean culture was all the hype, and today, it is the new normal.”
The other way to develop products is to understand what the competition is doing. Because that means there already is a big market to provide for in that category. Like with soya sauce. Finally, extensive studies are done to determine the top dishes within a cuisine. “Like a Manchurian gravy is among the top three dishes in Indo-Asian cooking. And it is a very widely known dish. But as a product, it is unique to MasterChow. You won’t find a ready-made Manchurian sauce easily.”
Creating Cravings
To appeal to the new-age customer, “You need to be unique, relatable, informative - all at once.” People's content consumption patterns have changed, and they get bored easily.
MasterChow’s content is food-centric, with mesmerising dishes and easy-to-follow recipes using their products. Humorous, relatable and most often, messaging coming straight from the founders. Their brand ambassador is Chef Ranveer Brar, who helps build both brand awareness and trust.
“To me, Masterchow has to be your friend. Every customer should know that there's a human behind it. It's not just a brand.”
Slurping To The End
Vidur’s Instagram bio says that Wok Me is his first love. And while the odds are typically stacked against a person and their first love, he hopes that a version of Wok Me will make a comeback someday.
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As for MasterChow, they have a few different goals - being top of mind when thinking about Chinese food and building a 1,000 crore company. But Vidur has a goal of his own, “In my mind, I envision going to a tier-two city, opening someone's fridge door, and finding a bottle of MasterChow there. That’s when I would know that I’m doing something right.”
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