Comment by elhudy | Hacker News Reader

Comment by elhudy | Hacker News Reader

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Mitraraman,

The website has a really clean look - it makes the product seem delicious and authentic. The minimalist design compliments the minimalism of the product.

I would be careful with identifying your target market. I live in Chicago, which I believe has one of the highest percentages of Indian immigrant populations in the nation. This might seem like your target market - but in fact the large percentage of immigrants has led to a slew of Indian markets and restaurants, that are likely equally delicious and cheap. It is a common theme among my coworkers to bring in homecooked Indian meals on a daily basis.

I also noticed the Upma pack is listed as gluten-free, but contains semolina. That's just asking for legal trouble from those with Celiac's. It might be worth consolidating all of the different packages and their ingredients lists on a separate page, QAing them, and making them more available to the reader in an organized, possibly drop-down format. Hope this feedback is useful.

Cheers

Thank you, really happy you like our website and product! There's a few key differences between our products and the existing Indian-based products which I've called out in a different response.

That's a good point about the target market. There's definitely a sizable portion of immigrants who continue to cook from scratch. There's also an emerging part of the market who are first/second-generation and don't cook at home as often -- either because they don't know how, don't have all the ingredients on hand, or don't have the time/patience. We are aiming to serve this population, and also be a nice-to-have for the former group of people!

That is a great call out on the Upma and a mistake on our end (that we accidentally added last night!). We will fix this immediately. I also really like your feedback about putting all the ingredients and nutritional information on a single page. Thank you!

Mitra Raman, If you would please consider Celiacs... it's so hard to find suitable/delicious food. South Indian food can be quite friendly to Celiacs. That said, my wife is so sensitive we almost never eat out due to cross-contamination, we even avoid products that are "made in a facility that handles wheat". So, it's not just ingredients but the chances of cross-contamination that matter to us.

Speaking of which, I'd love to know of Indian restaurants in Chicago, ideally closer to south side, that are truly friendly to Celiacs. Thanks.

Well this might not answer your question in regards to the celiac aspect. I will say that the Indian place in the food court of 550 w Madison is worth checking out. It's adjacent to Ogilve. It's better than any other place I've tried by a long shot.

>It might be worth consolidating all of the different packages and their ingredients lists on a separate page

Agreed. And also may be worth putting all the nutritional information (I mean what ingredients are used, and all - not some - of them, and in what percentages or weights - again, for all), on the food packages themselves. Saying this because a pet peeve of mine about Indian products here is that many of them put such info for some, but not all of the ingredients. Common example: Haldiram snacks: they often mention many ingredients, but the labeling can go like this: Peanuts (8%), gram flour (12%), rice flour (no number given), and so on. I mean what the heck is the use of putting that info, then? if a person wants to know that info, they want to know it for all ingredients, not just some, for their health or whatever other reasons.

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