The Kitchen of Tomorrow: Pranoti Nagarkar

More than 200 million perfectly puffed rotis have been served up across 58 countries thanks to Zimplistic’s Rotimatic machine since it first burst onto the culinary scene in 2016.

By transforming the basic ingredients of flour, water and salt into the iconic flatbread in less than 90 seconds, the revolutionary machine neatly eliminated the kneading, rolling and griddling usually required, cleverly catering to an increasingly time-poor consumer.

"Our customers are predominantly Indian subcontinent background people who are living in the United States, Australia, Europe and the United Kingdom," Zimplistic Co-CEO and Co-Founder Pranoti Nagarkar tells The CEO Magazine.

"Whether it’s tech troubleshooting or whether users have questions about how to use different kinds of flour to make different recipes, there’s very intense hardware support that needs to go in after the sale is complete."

It’s because of this popularity among members of the Indian diaspora, that Zimplistic decided to base its after-sales support in India, where an abundance of tech talent is an added bonus.

"Whether it’s tech troubleshooting or whether users have questions about how to use different kinds of flour to make different recipes, there’s very intense hardware support that needs to go in after the sale is complete," Nagarkar explains.

"If there’s a failure in the field, how do you service the product? All these aspects need different talents and different teams to be put together. And with it becoming challenging to hire in Singapore, we had to diversify and start building multinational teams."

Local Teams

While production is carried out in Malaysia, the company has also built a team of mechanical engineers in the Philippines, with a Vietnam-based team focusing on electronics and embedded systems.

"We created larger teams out of these countries where the talent is," Nagarkar reflects. "And then of course as the COVID-19 pandemic was receding and production started coming back, we resurrected the whole production quantity, the volume and we came back.

"We are trying to improve the various value propositions, meaning we can offer so much more than just a plain simple flatbread."

"So over the last three years we’ve been able to consistently get our sales up and get our operational expenditure under control because now we are diversified in teams. So all in all it really helped our entire company."

Having laid the groundwork for the next phase in Zimplistic’s global expansion, the coming years will see the company place greater emphasis on continually innovating its flagship product, while also being creative with the rotis themselves.

"We are trying to improve the various value propositions, meaning we can offer so much more than just a plain simple flatbread," Nagarkar expands. "It can do other flatbreads, it can enhance the way you consume your food at home.

"For example, at home you have breakfast, lunch and dinner. So then how can we integrate ourselves in all three meals and give you that fresh and healthy experience without the hassle of cooking. That’s the whole point of it."

Exploring gluten-free roti options is another promising area for Zimplistic, according to Nagarkar, as it seeks to expand its market beyond the Indian diaspora.

Constant Innovation

While the company is, to an extent, at the mercy of geopolitical tensions and world events like so many others, more pressing for Nagarkar and her team is what she describes as "the innovation challenge".

Quite apart from the hardware and software innovations that Zimplistic is continually working on behind the scenes is the pressure to keep up with the commercial innovations taking place out there in the wider world.

"These are your payment gateways and your ecommerce platforms," Nagarkar says.

Still Zimplistic is keeping pace with its bold approach to experimentation.

"When you are innovating something which has never been done before, there is always an uncertainty, which you really don’t have an answer to, but you have faith and the logical mind that is telling you that if we innovate in this way, things should work out," she expands.

"Then when you actually start building, prototyping and getting things together, then the innovation starts coming together."

"Every Rotimatic is connected and we have a diagnostic team that can remotely troubleshoot your machine – you don’t have to go to a particular physical center and no technician has to go to your house to diagnose what’s going on."

But that’s where other challenges start to creep in such as user-friendliness, cleanliness, safety.

"There is a slight element of uncertainty when it comes to innovation like that, especially disruptive innovations," she says.

In line with this, the company’s entire business model is connected via the Internet of Things, Nagarkar explains.

"Every Rotimatic is connected and we have a diagnostic team that can remotely troubleshoot your machine – you don’t have to go to a particular physical center and no technician has to go to your house to diagnose what’s going on," she continues.

Zimplistic’s use of Amazon Web Services has further revolutionized the way it operates, she enthuses, enabling it to grow its empire without a physical presence in any stores.

"Now, I don’t need to set up service centers in 40 countries and multiple cities in each country, I’m able to deliver a product seamlessly to your doorstep and service it at your doorstep," she says.

Coming Together

While one eye remains firmly on the latest technological advancements, with generative AI of particular interest, the other is on something more traditional – the nutritional and cultural value of food. Freshness and hygiene are factors that cannot be overlooked in the quest for convenience.

"Food is not just a commodity," Nagarkar stresses.

"We look at food in a very different way and we hope that we can build a world where the old traditional ways of eating food remain, where the family comes together, sits together and chatters around food, where there’s freshness and the nutritional aspect of food is a focus.

"We’ve learned a lot of lessons in the last 15 years. We are constantly improving, constantly learning."

"But who has the time to go through the hassle of chopping, cutting, making, cooking and kneading? It’s a lot of effort if you have to do it three times a day. So we are hoping we can provide a solution."

She sees Zimplistic as being at the forefront of a movement that is changing the future of the kitchen for the better – a mission in which competition does not figure.

"Solutions are everything for us and our solutions have that clarity where it has to be a full solution. It cannot be a half solution," she stresses.

"We’ve learned a lot of lessons in the last 15 years. We are constantly improving, constantly learning."