Hyderabad techie quits lucrative job to start cloud kitchen

Hyderabad: A techie named Rajendra Prasad from Hyderabad left his high-paying lucrative IT job to pursue his passion of running a cloud kitchen. For Rajendra, the prime motive behind starting this venture is to provide people and especially kids with healthy, authentic, and tasty snacks.

His cloud kitchen named T Snacks is located in Pragathi Nagar, Kukatpally. They make authentic Telangana and Andhra snacks like Sakinalu, Chekkalu, Murukulu, Janthikalu, Mixtures, Karappusa and sweets like boondhi laddu, arisalu, gavvalu, palli laddoo, dry fruit laddoo, pickles and podis (powders) like Kandi podi and Karivepaku (curry leaves) podi that Rajendra says are inspired from the recipes of his grandmother.

Rajendra Prasad graduated from Gulbarga university back in 1999. “I worked in the US as a consultant for more than 5 years and returned to India in 2004 and continued to work in the IT industry until last year,” Rajendra told Siasat.com.

Pappu chekka, made at the T snacks kitchen.

“Initially, I ran this business parallel to my IT job for a while but understood that I had to take a call in order to make progress,” he added.

When asked about choosing to run a cloud kitchen over a successful IT job, Rajendra said that life got boring and taxing in the industry. “As you get old, it gets tough to continue in the industry (IT). My parents weren’t happy when I told them about my decision to quit the IT industry. But, I understood that if I don’t start this business now, it could get very difficult into the future,” he said.

The food and hospitality industry was a major victim due to the COVID pandemic. Rajendra said that their business suffered a lot because of the situation. “I started this business just a month before the first wave of the COVID pandemic. We were completely new to the business. It affected us a lot,” he said.

Workers preparing snacks in the T snacks kitchen. (Photo: Special arrangement)

T Snacks is growing by the day and Rajendra is confident that they will bloom. “My goal is to replicate the success of food companies like the Haldiram’s, not just in making profits but also in generating employment,” he said.

“We prepare snacks on orders and don’t maintain any stock. We are active on Facebook and Instagram,” he added.

Along with Hyderabad, Rajendra currently ships products to Mumbai, Delhi, Chennai and other major cities, as well as to foreign countries including the UK, US & Australia.