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Launch HN: The Buttermilk Company (YC S18) – Homemade Indian Food in 5 Minutes

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101–110 of 454 posts

Re: Launch HN: The Buttermilk Company (YC S18) – Homemade Indian Food in 5 Minutes

#101
post #10

Any rationale for not using GMO ingredients?

Seems like a reasonable choice. There are people who won't buy their products if they are GMO, but the reverse is not true. (I doubt there's anyone who will only buy GMO products.)

People won't look for GMO products, but if you have two products with similar tastes and nutritional value, but one is more expensive because it has a "GMO Free" sticker on it, I'd bet most people would go for the cheaper option.

Re: Launch HN: The Buttermilk Company (YC S18) – Homemade Indian Food in 5 Minutes

#102
post #23

Can you share more about the "sustainable packaging"?

Yes! - Our packets are made from 4"x6" aluminum, FDA-approved packaging. - We ship in thermal bubble mailers (also aluminum) inside of recyclable boxes with compostable liners. - We include ice packs in each order that are reusable. You can also send those back to us if you don't want to keep them!

Re: Launch HN: The Buttermilk Company (YC S18) – Homemade Indian Food in 5 Minutes

#103
I just want to point out a small issue on your site. On the page https://thebuttermilkco.com/collections/all/products/the-i-c... the link to the khichdi leads to the page for upma.

As somebody with dairy allergies, I was going to avoid this, given the name, but since I saw you mentioned that the meals were all vegan (so far) I am tempted to give it a go.

Re: Launch HN: The Buttermilk Company (YC S18) – Homemade Indian Food in 5 Minutes

#104

Dude, if this works, you're sitting on a goldmine! I love Indian food, but I live in the middle of nowhere (more specifically in a rural area 10 miles from the nearest town). The closest Indian restaurant is at least 45 minutes away and the closest good one is probably over an hour away. I'd buy this in a heartbeat.

Thank you!! Everyone needs good Indian food :) Hope you try it out!

Re: Launch HN: The Buttermilk Company (YC S18) – Homemade Indian Food in 5 Minutes

#105

I love the family story on the site, and the design is beautiful. I agree with others that suggest the nutrition info should be a little easier to find. We just subscribed to the Buttermilk Suite. Looking forward to trying it.

Thank you! Looking forward to your feedback + will definitely update the nutrition info soon!

Re: Launch HN: The Buttermilk Company (YC S18) – Homemade Indian Food in 5 Minutes

#106
post #103

I just want to point out a small issue on your site. On the page https://thebuttermilkco.com/collections/all/products/the-i-c... the link to the khichdi leads to the page for upma. As somebody with dairy allergies, I was going to avoid this, given the name, but since I saw you mentioned that the meals were all vegan (so far) I am tempted to give it a go.

Thank you so much for pointing that out! We will fix it ASAP.

Re: Launch HN: The Buttermilk Company (YC S18) – Homemade Indian Food in 5 Minutes

#107
post #35

Why is the sodium level so high? The dal pack has 1220 milligrams of sodium per serving? It seems rather unethical for you to be marketing high sodium products to a group of people that should not be eating a daily amount of sodium in one sitting.

Actually, that's pretty low for an Indian dish. Many of the dishes (especially south Indian) have way above this amount o sodium. It probably makes sense to take that much sodium when living in South India as many places are hot and you will end up sweating the sodium out anyway.

Re: Launch HN: The Buttermilk Company (YC S18) – Homemade Indian Food in 5 Minutes

#108
post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 1) I don't get your branding, especially the company name, and especially as all of your meals are vegan. As I mentioned downthread, I was planning to skip this completely because of the name until one of the founders happened to mention in a comment that the meals are vegan. I don't normally associate "buttermilk" with anything that I eat as a vegan. This might be a tricky marketing issue, because a huge amount of…

That's a great point about the branding. Why we're called Buttermilk: Buttermilk is eaten at the end of almost every South Indian meal to "cool down" the stomach. As a South Indian myself, this is one of my go-to comfort foods. The aim with the company is to provide authentic, comfort foods which is how we came about to using it for the name! Plus, it's a known and easy-to-say word. We didn't actually launch with the…

Another vegan chiming in to say I assumed these weren’t suitable for me based on the name because buttermilk is an ingredient I see and think, “damn :(“. Veganism is very much about identifying red flags that make something unsuitable, so any reference to a non-vegan product is going to immediately turn off a non-zero portion of vegans because they won’t search out the ingredients to discover it is vegan.

A key part of a manageable vegan life is building a database of what you can consume that you enjoy and using that to drive choices, so if you can get vegan customers buying your food and enjoying it then they’re going to be stickier customers. I am a very loyal customer to my favourite food brands out of necessity, as are my vegan friends.

That said there’s certainly a double edged sword here in that there are some non-vegans who see “vegan” and are turned off but given Indian food is so often vegan I don’t think this would be a concern in your market. Although the name is cute, it’s definitely misrepresenting your product to a growing portion of your potential customers. If you stick with the name, regardless of marketing, you’re going to lose vegans, because many won’t look beyond the name because that’s a necessity for getting by.

There’s a few companies in the U.K. doing intentionally vegan ready meals (e.g https://allplants.com) and there’s a growing market for vegan ready meals (we are as busy/lazy as everybody else), so I think it’s worthwhile to reconsider the name, but also it’s a great name so maybe you can be the company to get vegans to look beyond red flags. Your product seems absolutely great for my needs and would, assuming they’re enjoyable to eat, integrate into my life well. Good luck!

Re: Launch HN: The Buttermilk Company (YC S18) – Homemade Indian Food in 5 Minutes

#109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

TastyBite is definitely a similar product/company. The key differentiators are: - Our products are fresh and don't have any preservatives, meaning they must be refrigerated or frozen whereas TastyBite is shelf-stable for 9+ months. Our food is inherently fresher and tastes more homemade because of this. - Our recipes are crowdsourced instead of developed in our kitchen. This ensures that the food is actually authenti…

So you are going to market as an upscale version of TastyBite with no preservatives that sells niche Indian food? I wish you the best of luck with that. Personally, I find a package of Vindaloo from TastyBite, some riced veggies, and a shredded chicken breast lasts me about 2 meals and is comparable to the price you are charging. I really only use TastyBite as a backpacking/on-the-go meal or as a quick curry out of l…

Your use case for TastyBit makes total sense. We're hoping to be a go-to option for a normal meal at home when you don't want to spend the time/money/energy on making a meal from scratch.

We are starting with Indian food but will hopefully be expanding to different cuisines, too!

Re: Launch HN: The Buttermilk Company (YC S18) – Homemade Indian Food in 5 Minutes

#110
post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except Tasty Bite tastes terrible. There's another competitor making the same thing (sealed cooked food, no water needed) Maya Kaimal that is _much_ better. It actually tastes good.

Personally, I enjoy Tasty Bite curries. It may not be the perfect authentic Indian dish you get at a good restaurant but I find at its price point there isn't any real competitor for my $$.

It's definitely a subjective thing! It's hard to find authentic Indian food that tastes good, is easy to make, and affordable. That's where we come in :)
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