Run a food marketplace from day one.
Bhuk (भूक, Marathi for hunger) is the marketplace for cloud kitchens and home cloud kitchens. People order for delivery, or pick up when the kitchen is close. Every kitchen gets its own address on bhuk.in, a storefront in one of six layouts, live orders, its own delivery partners and a margin meter. You run it, sell it and earn from it. Kitchens pay a yearly plan; Bhuk takes no commission.
BhukHungry people. Small kitchens.
The problem
Cloud kitchens and home chefs make great food but struggle to be found without handing 20–30% of every order to the big food apps, before GST on commission, forced discounts and ad spend. They cannot see their real profit per order, food cost leaks, a late rider costs them a star, and rush hours break the kitchen.
Who buys
Cloud kitchens and home chefs subscribe for a storefront on bhuk.in, live orders and a kitchen display, delivery partners with live tracking, batches, meal plans and the margin meter. People who eat use it free: delivery or pickup, live tracking with an OTP, a pickup radar, ratings that keep delivery apart from the food.
How it earns
Subscriptions only: Standard, Premium and Ultra Premium, billed yearly by STARTIONS LLP with GST invoices. Bhuk never holds money and takes no commission: customers pay each kitchen through the kitchen's own gateway or in cash.
Cloud kitchens do not fail at cooking. They fail at the numbers.
Figures come from published industry articles and operator guides and vary by source; treat them as directional. Each one maps to a Bhuk feature below.
Built so kitchens want to join.
A warm, photo-led marketplace on bhuk.in: every kitchen gets a page that sells, every rider a board that works on a phone, every customer live tracking and a rating that tells the truth.
Own address and directory
Every kitchen lives at bhuk.in/name in one of six layouts and is listed in the directory, searchable by craving and pincode.
Live orders and KDS
New, accepted, cooking, ready, out on one board; a kitchen display splits tickets by station with timers, bump and recall, on any TV or tablet.
Cloud kitchen POS
Counter, phone, WhatsApp, Swiggy, Zomato, ONDC and magicpin orders at one counter: cash with change, UPI, card or credit, app commissions, KOT and bill printing, register shifts.
Inventory and profit
Recipes use stock as orders are accepted, wastage and counts are logged, expenses are added once; the profit statement shows food cost %, prime cost % and break-even orders a day.
Clone and outlets
Copy a menu or a whole kitchen into a new brand, and run several kitchens under one brand with each order sent to the nearest.
Delivery partners and live tracking
The kitchen's own riders on a phone board, pooled trips to the same building, an OTP at the door, trip pay and payouts.
Pickup radar
Nearest windows, a live ready-in countdown and a code at the counter. No fee.
Rating shield
Food and delivery are rated apart; a late rider never touches a dish's rating.
Margin meter
Profit per order after food, packaging, rider pay and tax, against the same order at aggregator commission; weekly food-cost drift per dish.
Kitchen load throttle
ETAs stretch, then new orders pause, at limits the kitchen sets. Ratings survive rush hour.
Batches and meal plans
Home chefs open pre-order batches; customers set weekday tiffin plans with pause-a-day.
Surplus deals and prep forecast
What is left at closing, at a discount; tomorrow's prep suggestion from four weeks of orders.
Multi-brand
Several virtual brands from one stove: one menu screen, one KDS, separate storefronts.
Paid directly
UPI, Razorpay, PayU, Paytm, Cashfree, PhonePe and more through the kitchen's own account, or cash at the door.
Customers stay the kitchen's
Orders, phones and addresses live in each kitchen's own database; students see the marketplace, never a customer.
FeastDum Pukht DabbaGharAaichi Thali
SliceSlice Society
SmashSmash Lab
WokWok WednesdayMeethaMeetha Ghar Pain points of kitchens, solved
- Commissions: 0%, own address, directory listing
- Profit blindness: the margin meter by source
- Food-cost leaks: the weekly tracker
- Delivery faults in ratings: the rating shield
- Rush hours: the load throttle
- Soggy dishes: travels-well scores
- Waste: batches, surplus deals, prep forecast
- One-brand risk: multi-brand storefronts
Pain points of home chefs, solved
- Trust: FSSAI checked by Bhuk, the badge on the page
- Uncertain demand: cook-to-order batches
- Regulars: meal plans with pause-a-day
- Delivery: pickup at the window, or their own rider
- A page of their own: the Ghar and Meetha layouts
For people who eat
- Search by craving and pincode
- Delivery or pickup, live tracking, OTP handoff
- Pickup radar and ready-in countdown
- One account, every kitchen, one-tap reorder
- Rate food and delivery separately
- Pay the kitchen directly, no markup
You run it from Nirmata.
Bhuk runs on the STARTIONS kit. Its startup panel in Nirmata is where the team works; customers' records and orders stay private to the kitchens.
Kitchens
Every kitchen as the marketplace sees it: live or hidden, health score, FSSAI expiry, orders and on-time rate. Students recommend the "Checked by Bhuk" badge; STARTIONS verifies, rejects or suspends; Spotlight for Ultra Premium.
Live delivery board
Every order in flight by stage and area, delays flagged, on-time rate, food and delivery ratings apart. Codes and kitchens only, never a customer.
Craving radar
What people searched for in the last four weeks by pincode and craving, against the kitchens that serve each pincode: where to recruit next.
Pincodes
The areas Bhuk serves, curated by Marketing and Operations students.
Packages and prices
Founders and Co-Founders edit the three packages; every change is audit-logged.
Demo kitchen
A fully working sample kitchen (Dum Pukht Dabba) with orders in every stage, riders, a batch and a meal plan for every sales demo, reset after each one.
One yearly plan, no commission.
- 1 brand on bhuk.in: storefront, menu, live orders, delivery and pickup
- Kitchen display system with stations and wall screens
- Feast and Ghar layouts
- Cook-to-order batches, coupons, Repeat club
- UPI, bank transfer and Razorpay through the kitchen's own account
- 3 brands from one stove, all six layouts
- Cloud kitchen POS for counter, phone and Swiggy/Zomato orders
- Delivery partners, live board, pooled trips, OTP handoff
- Meal plans, margin meter, food-cost tracker, load throttle, surplus deals
- More gateways, CRM contacts, leads, tasks and WhatsApp
- Unlimited brands, 15 team logins
- Menu and kitchen clone, several kitchens under one brand
- Inventory, recipes, expenses and the profit statement
- Craving radar and prep forecast
- Eligible for Bhuk Spotlight
- Every gateway and every CRM module
Prices as set in Nirmata today, the same yearly prices as the other STARTIONS marketplaces. STARTIONS can change them in Nirmata at any time; Founders and Co-Founders edit packages too, and every change is audit-logged.
What a Student Admin does.
Find
List cloud kitchens, home chefs, tiffin services and dessert makers in your area; walk the lanes, talk to the cooks.
Onboard
Demo Bhuk on the live sample kitchen, start each kitchen's free trial, help it pick a layout, load its menu and go live.
Verify
Check FSSAI licence numbers on the register, recommend the badge, keep the directory clean and the pincodes current.
Grow
Upgrades to Premium and Ultra Premium, renewals, new areas, the first riders, the first home chefs' batches.
Students never create tenants, change plans or see customers' data: kitchens sign up on bhuk.in, and every plan change comes from a verified payment.
Everything a founder needs, from day one.
Your Nirmata panel
Bhuk's startup panel: kitchens, the live delivery board, the craving radar, pincodes, packages and finances.
Business email on bhuk.in
yourname@bhuk.in for every outreach and onboarding call.
Free tech support
The STARTIONS tech team runs hosting, payments, updates and fixes. You run the business.
Premium Bitrix24 CRM
Your pipeline of kitchens, tasks per role and invoices, synced with the kit.
A registered domain
bhuk.in is registered, with certificates handled for you.
Brand logo and identity
The Bhuk look: cocoa, chilli red and saffron, six storefront layouts, real food photos.
A live product ready to sell
The marketplace, storefronts, ordering, tracking, riders, batches, meal plans and the margin meter are built. Your job starts at the first kitchen.
Four roles, one profit pool, paid to students.
100% of Bhuk's net profit goes to its students; STARTIONS takes none of it. Each role has a share of the pool, split equally among that role's seats and paid once a year after the financial year ends, as Startup Execution Remuneration with TDS deducted.
Founder
Leads Bhuk, owns the kitchen targets and the team, prices and edits packages, sits on the Finance Committee.
Co-Founder
Runs a department (Sales, Marketing or Operations) with the Founders, prices and edits packages, sits on the Finance Committee.
Teammate
Runs a sub-team such as Customer Onboarding, Support, Online or Branding & Content. Views packages.
Intern
Learns inside a department alongside the team. Views everything; earns the experience and the certificate.
Five consecutive paid years with an active seat earn ownership: 11% shared by Founders, 11% by Co-Founders and 11% by Teammates, growing 20% a year on your dashboard certificate. A Mega startup can take a ₹1,00,000 STARTIONS loan for operating costs on a unanimous vote of all 36 seats.
Who is already on the team.
This chart reads Bhuk's seats from Nirmata. A seat turns "Taken" the moment its payment is verified, so what you see open is open right now.
Seats and yearly fees by startup type, with the readiness discount
| Startup type | Founders | Co-Founders | Teammates | Interns | Seats | All seats, a year |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Yearly seat fee | ₹97,200 | ₹72,900 | ₹40,500 | ₹18,000 | ||
| With readiness, 30% off | ₹68,040 | ₹51,030 | ₹28,350 | ₹12,600 | ||
| Solo | 1 | — | — | 5 | 6 | ₹1,87,200 |
| Micro | 1 | 2 | 2 | 4 | 9 | ₹3,96,000 |
| Mini | 2 | 4 | 4 | 8 | 18 | ₹7,92,000 |
| Major | 3 | 6 | 6 | 12 | 27 | ₹11,88,000 |
| Mega This one | 4 | 8 | 8 | 16 | 36 | ₹15,84,000 |
Fees in INR, the same for every type, plus 18% GST. Seat fees are STARTIONS' income, not the startup's revenue. Each student chooses manual or automatic yearly renewal.
- Founder 80–100
- Co-Founder 60–79
- Teammate 40–59
- Intern 0–39
Clear the readiness test, get 30% off your seat.
Take the free Startions Readiness Score test: ten questions, about three minutes. Your score places you at a level, from Intern up to Founder. If your level matches the role you apply for, or is higher, you get a flat 30% discount on that role's annual seat fee.
| Your score | 30% off these seats |
|---|---|
| 80–100 · Founder level | Founder ₹68,040, Co-Founder ₹51,030, Teammate ₹28,350, Intern ₹12,600 |
| 60–79 · Co-Founder level | Co-Founder ₹51,030, Teammate ₹28,350, Intern ₹12,600 |
| 40–59 · Teammate level | Teammate ₹28,350, Intern ₹12,600 |
| 0–39 · Intern level | Intern ₹12,600 |
For example, a score of 65 is Co-Founder level: you get 30% off a Co-Founder, Teammate or Intern seat, but not a Founder seat. A score at Teammate level gets 30% off a Teammate or Intern seat only. Discounted fees shown are a year, before 18% GST. Your best result of the last 30 days counts, one result discounts one seat, and that seat keeps the discount every year you renew it. Your first attempt is free, and you can retake the test up to five times.
What a seat could pay back.
Move the sliders. Kitchen plans are Bhuk's revenue (ex-GST); approved costs come off; a tax reserve is kept aside; the rest is net profit, split into the role pools and shared per seat.
Plans: Standard ₹4,995 / Premium ₹9,995 / Ultra Premium ₹19,995 a year, ex-GST, as set in Nirmata today. Revenue counts in the month it is paid. Each role's pool is split equally among its seats, assuming every seat is filled; a role with fewer students pays each of them more. Paid once a year, after 31 March, with TDS deducted. A loss is not paid out and carries forward.
Money kitchens pay the startup each month, 24 months
An illustration from the numbers you set, not a promise. Income depends on the customers your team signs and keeps.
Four steps to your first kitchen.
Book a clarity call
Thirty minutes on Bhuk, the open seats, the readiness discount and what your first 30 days look like.
Pick your role
Founder, Co-Founder, Teammate or Intern, and the department you will run.
Take your seat
STARTIONS invites you; pay the seat fee and get your Nirmata login, bhuk.in email and Bitrix24 CRM.
Start selling
Sign up kitchens on free trials, get their menus live, bring the first orders in.
Before you apply.
What does a Bhuk founder actually do?
Bring cloud kitchens and home chefs onto the platform, help them go live, check their licences, grow orders in your area and keep the delivery board green. The product, hosting and payments are built and run by STARTIONS.
Who owns the product?
The startup and the product belong to STARTIONS; students run it in their roles. Five consecutive paid years with an active seat earn ownership, as described above.
Can I see customers' orders or phone numbers?
No. Customers, orders and menus live in each kitchen's own database. Students see the marketplace, the kitchens' public facts, and anonymous order stages and areas on the delivery board.
Who collects the money?
STARTIONS LLP bills kitchens for their plans and issues the GST invoices; that is Bhuk's revenue. Customers pay kitchens directly; Bhuk takes no commission and holds no money. Your seat fee is STARTIONS' income.
Do kitchens get a subdomain?
Kitchens live at bhuk.in/yourname, one address per kitchen or brand, with its own storefront and listing.
What is the readiness discount?
Take the Startions Readiness Score test: if your level matches the role you apply for, or a higher one, you get 30% off that role's yearly seat fee (see the seat table above).
Is income guaranteed?
No. The calculator is an illustration from the numbers you set. Results depend on the kitchens your team signs and keeps.
Ready to feed a neighbourhood? Start with a call.
Book a clarity call and we will walk you through the open seats, the pricing, the readiness discount and your first 30 days.