As home cooking evolves, specialty produce finds new demand in Chennai

“Where to find galangal in Chennai.” “Thai bird’s eye chilli near me.” These were some of my recent Google searches on a weekend when I found myself craving Thai curry the way I had eaten it on a trip to Bangkok. I quickly realised this little weekend project was harder than expected because the ingredients were simply not easy to find. For all the convenience promised by modern grocery apps, finding anything beyond the familiar still feels surprisingly difficult.

Home cooking has changed dramatically over the last few years. Post-pandemic kitchens have become more experimental, with people attempting ramen broths, Korean stews, pasta sauces, and Thai curries with a seriousness once reserved for restaurant kitchens.

This is the shift in food culture that Origin Fresh is betting on. The Bengaluru-based fresh produce platform, which recently opened its second Chennai outlet in Anna Nagar, is positioning itself less as a quick commerce platform and more as a specialist for fruits, vegetables and hard-to-find ingredients.

“We are not a 10-minute delivery platform because that is not our strength,” says Prashanth Vasan, CEO and co-founder of Origin Fresh. “Our strength is sourcing and growing high-quality fruits and vegetables.”

Started in 2024 by Prashant and his co-founder Vikram (whose family has been in the fruits and vegetables business for decades), Origin Fresh began with a simple question: how do you make ingredients usually limited to restaurant kitchens accessible to home cooks?

“People are more well-travelled now, especially after COVID. They are exposed to new cuisines and they want to recreate those dishes at home,” says Prashanth. “But the problem we saw was that many of those ingredients were simply not available. We wanted to make those ingredients more accessible to consumers. That is how Origin Fresh started.”

Today, the platform works with more than 5,000 micro farmers growing everything from staples to hydroponic lettuces, jalapeños, bird’s eye chillies and nearly a dozen varieties of tomatoes. Its shelves now carry produce rarely seen in regular neighbourhood grocery stores from beefsteak tomatoes and shiso leaves to Thai guavas, hydro kale and Japanese honeydew melons.

Unlike most delivery-first grocery platforms, Origin’s stores double up as fulfilment centres, allowing for what Prashant calls a “last-mile quality check” before produce reaches customers. The platform currently works with farms across Malur, Chikkaballapur, Ooty and Nashik, following a “picked today, delivered tomorrow” model.

“Vegetables won’t be 100% right every single time,” says Prashanth. “The shelf life in India is very different from what you see abroad. But what we are trying to do is make people discover new varieties and enjoy cooking again.”

What Origin Fresh appears to be responding to is a subtle but growing shift in urban food habits. Ingredients once confined to restaurant kitchens or imported grocery aisles are slowly entering everyday cooking conversations. For a growing number of home cooks, groceries are no longer just about utility, but about experimentation, memory and curiosity.

Origin Fresh is now at 1st Avenue, RV Nagar, Block I, Annanagar East, Chennai. The store is open from 6.30am to 10.30pm. Produce can also be purchased from the Origin Fresh app.