BENGALURU: Six months into the lockdown, after the initial flush of success, servicing orders from friends and family, home chefs are establishing themselves as small businesses. The Yummy Idea, a platform to discover home chefs, has seen more than 1,500 registered home chefs in five months.

Another aggregator FoodCloud said over 1,000 licensed home chefs have been onboarded since April.

“Some of our chefs are doing business upwards of Rs 2 lakh a month from within their homes,” said Vedant Kanoi, founder, Food Cloud. Other aggregators, including Foody Buddy and Home Foodi, also help in the discovery of home chefs.

Separately, Ghost Kitchens said it is collaborating with these women entrepreneurs to launch professional delivery brands. “We plan to enroll home chefs across different cities, and help in brand building, technology, standard operating procedures (SOP) and capital,” said Karan Tanna, founder of Ghost Kitchens.

A dozen people including home chefs, hospitality executives and bloggers ET spoke to were unanimous that these entrepreneurs are getting more organised.

They are applying for Food Safety and Standards Authority of India or FSSAI licences, opening up small commercial kitchens, advertising locally, taking orders from Instagram and WhatsApp, accepting online payments, and using logistics services like Dunzo, Swiggy, and Wefast for deliveries.

“At first, I just did it for a few close friends in the initial days of the lockdown but then as word of mouth spread I was approached to do this professionally,” said 50-year-old Bobbie Kaur, a home chef based in Mumbai.