14 ms·

Show HN: Saag as a Service – macronutrient-portioned Indian spinach curry

303 points by sohamsankaran 7y ago

sohamsankaran 7y ago
Hi HN, I’m Soham Sankaran, the founder of Pashi, the company behind Saag as a Service (https://saag.pashi.com https://saag.pashi.com). We offer three macronutrient-portioned variants of Saag (delicately-spiced Indian spinach curry): High Fat Saag Paneer, Balanced Saag Tofu, and High Protein Saag Seitan. We currently deliver weekly to customers in the SF Bay Area. I started this service because I’ve struggled with nutrition all my life -- with obesity, the threat of my long family history of diabetes, and with getting adequate protein as a vegetarian in the United States. I’ve never had the time to consistently cook all my meals, and it’s hard to know the nutritional value of food you’re getting at restaurants unless you stick to salads or chain fast food (which is required to have nutritional information but is routinely off by 20-40%). Even if you know the nutritional values of the food you’re eating, attempting to log all your meals and snacks in a journal or an app like MyFitnessPal can be a massive time-sink and mental load. ‘Complete nutrition’ products like Soylent and Huel were appealing for relieving the physical and cognitive burden of dealing with nutrition all the time, but I perceived two major issues with them: 1) They taste absolutely terrible. These products are a massive step backward from thousands of years of accumulated culinary experience, and I don’t believe that most people are willing to forgo the pleasure that comes from eating real food three times a day, even if some kind of meal replacement is the right choice for their health. The biggest issue with diet plans and nutrition studies of all kinds is pervasively low adherence -- it just isn’t possible to get most people to consistently eat food that doesn’t taste good. 2) The retail versions of these products are not particularly customizable. Different people have different nutritional needs -- certainly calorically, but also in terms of macronutrient proportions. A female weightlifter and a male endurance runner have different bodies and different goals, resulting in different optimal nutritional profiles. Feeding them the same one-size-fits-all meal replacement is a mistake. I stated Pashi to provide a real-food based nutrition service that tastes great but still retains the desirable characteristics of things like Soylent. The long term vision is to usher in a world where people can eat real, tasty food that is seamlessly customized to the specific nutritional profile they desire. I initially soft-launched Pashi as a producer of entire meals with fully customizable calorie counts and macronutrient proportions, but this seemed to confuse people and didn't get very much traction. As a result, we’ve scaled back the focus to one of the most popular, customizable, and easily explainable foods on our menu -- Saag. If this gets some traction, we’ll introduce more fine-grained nutritional customization and more menu items depending on the feedback we get from our users. I’d love to get the community’s thoughts on this and answer any questions here or via email (soham@pashi.com).
llarsson 7y ago
Lovely idea and had I been in the area you target, I would have ordered some, for sure! Do you deliver yourself, or are you using a delivery service?
- sohamsankaran 7y ago
  Thanks! We currently handle delivery ourselves. What area are you in? If you're in the Bay Area but not in our coverage area, email me (soham@pashi.com) and we can try to make it work.
  - llarsson 7y ago
    Sadly I don't think you'll be covering Sweden any time soon. :)
    - sohamsankaran 7y ago
      That is likely a ways away, but if you email me I'll make sure you're the first to find out when we get there!
      - bluebluetimes 7y ago
        is there a saag vegan version / no sugar, no butter no animal products?
  - jakear 7y ago
    I notice your zip codes aren't numerically sorted, at first I thought mine (94117) wasn't available, because it wasn't in the first block of 94. Might want to sort them, or just allow people to type it in. Cool product though! I'm ordering some now.
    - sohamsankaran 7y ago
      Nice catch, fixed!
spraak 7y ago
Isn't it ironic [1], don't you think, that the vegan option has less carbs than the 'keto friendly' option? Tofu has less carbs than milk. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ironic_(song) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ironic_(song)
- sohamsankaran 7y ago
  The Saag Paneer option has a lot more fat, which is why we targeted that at folks looking for a keto-friendly option, but this is indeed somewhat amusing.
- quickthrower2 7y ago
  Milk is quite carby.
mipmap04 7y ago
When I saw Saag as a Service I was hoping for some kind of API where I could place and order through curl or something! Kinda like the EverQuest 2 pizza command. Good luck!
- sohamsankaran 7y ago
  The long-term vision for this, which we hope to fulfill once we get some traction, is an API that allows you to order food such as Saag with arbitrary nutritional values (within a certain range). We don't have the volume for that yet, but with your help maybe we can get there soon!
  - saagarjha 7y ago
    How would you tweak those values?
    - sohamsankaran 7y ago
      Changing the proportions of the ingredients -- in the case of saag, we could mix and match paneer, tofu, seitan, and a side of a carb like rice to produce any reasonable macronutrient ratio.
ykevinator 7y ago
I love this idea, I would sign up today if you delivered in New York.
- sohamsankaran 7y ago
  Shoot me an email at soham@pashi.com, if we get enough interest in the area we might be able to make it happen!
  - bluebluetimes 7y ago
    pls add daal as a service
spraak 7y ago
This is really nice! As a Hindu & vegan I wish I lived in your delivery zone :) (I live way out in the Pacific ocean, though) In any case, cool to see you're trying a more narrow approach, and the website explains things well and looks great. One question I was left with is how big is the portion? I may have missed that. And if this were available to me I'd be eager for the next available item to be chana masala. Thanks for sharing
- sohamsankaran 7y ago
  Each portion is 500 calories. We serve them in 16oz containers, but the volume of Saag depends on the variant ordered (to make sure they are all the same number of calories).
paultopia 7y ago
Does anyone else who went to Stanford in the 00's remember Tiffin Dinner? Delicious homemade Indian food delivery, sadly closed. That got me through the quarter when I had a broken ankle..:
- 83457 7y ago
  Speaking of tiffins, here is a video of the lunch delivery system in Mumbai I think others will enjoy... https://youtu.be/dX-0el2wuEU https://youtu.be/dX-0el2wuEU
2pointsomone 7y ago
Love it! But this is Palak as a Service, not Saag as a Service. Saag, I think, is mustard leaves
- sohamsankaran 7y ago
  My understanding is that Saag is the generic term for a leafy vegetable curry of this kind (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saag https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saag). Mustard is Sarson, if my Hindi isn't failing me.
  - 2pointsomone 7y ago
    Oh yes of course, it's sarson. My bad. Big misconception corrected. My only association with saag was sarson ka saag, before I came to America, where I found it interchangeably used with palak in palak paneer.
  - kinkrtyavimoodh 7y ago
    From the website it looks like you are using spinach for this. In which case, Palak as a Service is actually the less misleading term. People associate Saag with either mustard leaves or at least a mix of green leaves. If it's only Palak, calling it saag might not be technically wrong but it's still not what people associate with that name.
    - sohamsankaran 7y ago
      We use a Palak-based Saag that has a mix of other green leaves as well.
mcthrowaway123z 7y ago
I would love to order some but it doesn't appear you deliver to 94607 (West Oakland).
- sohamsankaran 7y ago
  Email me your address at soham@pashi.com and we'll try to make it work!
prithvi24 7y ago
Really like this concept! As a vegetarian, I have come across many other services that focus on nutritionally customizable products, but when it comes to vegetarian options, the macros / protein numbers leave a lot to be desired. I've also noticed that a lot of the vegetarian options available at restaurants in the bay tend to be much more carb heavy than I would prefer, and it takes a lot of overhead to research / optimize each and every meal. I'm always looking for ways to algorithmically optimize my meals, and currently Chipotle and their app does the best job of enabling this in a standardized way (can pretty easily get nutrition info and hook it into other apps) , but it ends up being pretty boring on a routine basis. Something like this, with an expanded product line would be really useful.
- sohamsankaran 7y ago
  Absolutely, these are the exact reasons I started this. We plan to expand to more dishes as we scale, but for now, if you're in the Bay Area, I hope we can at least help liberate you from the monotony of Chipotle.
  - bluebluetimes 7y ago
    chipotle for indian / vegan/ vegetarian food is the holy grail
    - jakear 7y ago
      Had a few of those around my place growing up (Nikki’s, around Orange County, CA), but they’ve all gone out of business by now. Absolute tragedy - the food was terrific and dirt cheap.
    - sremani 7y ago
      I do not recollect the name, but there is an Indian restaurant with that concept near New Brunswick NJ.
    - aripickar 7y ago
      There’s a place in Berkeley called urban turbann, that fills the niche for Indian chipotle. Wish they would expand.
pkaye 7y ago
Looks like someone needs to start Naan as a service to complement this.
- selimthegrim 7y ago
  Rotimatic debuting an app in 3...2...1...
shaunxcode 7y ago
Please add 95014! I would order this daily!
- sohamsankaran 7y ago
  We do have 95014, it's selectable from the dropdown! Send me an email at soham@pashi.com if you have trouble ordering.
  - shaunxcode 7y ago
    I must have missed it before but I see it now. Excited to try it out.
nngrey 7y ago
Please add Portland and PaaS (Paneer makani as a Service)!
wwweston 7y ago
Trader Joe's seemed to discontinue their $2/8oz pouch packaged saag paneer about a year ago, and I haven't yet figured out how to make one I like on my own, and even when I do, I might not always want to spend the time on it. Hope I get a chance to try this in LA before too long. :)
devtanna 7y ago
Love the idea and the implementation! I am living in Dubai and have the exact same struggle with finding an appropriate vegetarian meal delivered that is healthy and not a salad. I'm a software engineer too and would love to help out with the tech if you need.
- sohamsankaran 7y ago
  Feel free to email me (soham@pashi.com), happy to talk!
somepig 7y ago
What benefit do you provide over the Indian place down the block with similar or even cheaper pricing? These prices are absurdly expensive even for us overpaid tech folk.
- personjerry 7y ago
  $12 per meal is "absurdly expensive"? I think it's comparable to eating out.
  - jakear 7y ago
    Yep, and no tip, drink overcharging, etc.
  - knubie 7y ago
    $12 for 500 calories is very expensive. For a typical 2500kcal diet that's $60 per day.
  - somepig 7y ago
    I mean... that's my point. I can plan ahead and pay $12 to have something delivered and then heat it up myself, or I can pay $12 to pick it up already hot and ready to eat, on demand.
  - GordonS 7y ago
    For a spinach curry (saag or saag paneer), yes, $12 is very expensive. In my local asian grocery store, they stock a lot of vacuum packed Indian meals, all of which have nothing "dodgy" in the list of ingredients, and all of which are actually really good - they cost the equivelant of around $2.5 each. My local Indian takeaway restaurants sell saag paneer for around $4 USD.
- perspective1 7y ago
  I had the same thought before seeing how excited many of the commenters here are about it! I guess the market exists and we're just not in it.
- sohamsankaran 7y ago
muralimadhu 7y ago
Great idea, a couple of comments. - please let us know how you source your ingredients. Spinach is one of the more pesticide ridden vegetables. And bad quality dairy may do more harm than good. - Seitan and tofu are not particularly healthy. Gluten and soy are known to be inflammatory foods and cause a lot of side affects. Would love to see a dairy-free, gluten-free, soy-free, organic version of this. Then it’s a truly hearty meal that I would order
tshanmu 7y ago
Nice one! Did not realise the market for vegan cooked food in the bay area is this big. How are you planning to scale saag as a service? I am tempted to ask after looking at your profile, is the cooking/portioning/packing done by a robot? is that your secret sauce behind scale up possibilities? All the best! looks tasty...
- sohamsankaran 7y ago
  We do have plans to use automation to scale in the long-term. If you're curious about details, shoot me an email and I'd be happy to talk further.
fragmede 7y ago
Minor technical thought - IMO have potential users customers enter their zip code allows you to see where potential future demand is. Other than that, the site looks great! Bonus points for simplifying down to an MVP, and S(pinach)aaS has a really good ring to it for the SF HN crowd. Am also looking forwards to non-spinach options! (I'm allergic)
xwdv 7y ago
I take offense to the high fat saag being portrayed by some fat bastard playing at an arcade machine while the other two images are of fit people doing healthy exercises. A high fat meal is key to getting energy for grueling tasks. This should be changed.
- sohamsankaran 7y ago
  This was intended to represent a 'Classic' arcade game (Saag Paneer is the traditional preparation), not as a comment on physical activity. My apologies for any offense caused, and I'm happy to take suggestions for a new illustration. Email me at soham@pashi.com if you'd like to talk further.
  - xwdv 7y ago
    The other images are comments on physical activity though, so it’s not hard to see how an image of a video gamer is also a comment on the physical activity of those who eat Saag Paneer. If you are going for a classic vibe, then just have an Indian man in classic Indian clothing doing something classically Indian, or just stirring a pot or something. An arcade machine is not an association readily made with food.
  - big_chungus 7y ago
    In fairness to you, I wouldn't really call this "offensive". It does possibly play into the "fat, game-addicted neckbeard" stereotype, but this is more likely a case of a startup not having the resources to do extensive testing on different imagery. You could try running some a/b tests with different logos, though, and measure your conversion.
  - Semiapies 7y ago
    I like the current image I'm seeing, with a thinner person playing the arcade game.
- TomMarius 7y ago
  I don't think the guy looks fat. I had to recheck for other images because I couldn't believe you mean that one.
andreilys 7y ago
“They taste absolutely terrible” That’s your opinion, I personally think it tastes great and haven’t had issues drinking it over the past 4 years. Given that Soylent has continues to grow signals that other consumers agree (investors also agree given they’ve raised $50m led google ventures). Also your product costs $12 per 500 cal (vs. $2.42 for 400cal for soylent) which is a huge selling point for people that drink soylent (it’s affordable, convenient and better than most fast food alternative)
- SolaceQuantum 7y ago
  I think it ultimately depends on the circle of people and what kind of cuisine they have normally. I think Soylent tastes quite mediocre- but my favorite foods are curries and vinegar/chili oil sauces. (Sad to say I often have meal replacements as punishment food.) I would definitely try this saag as a service(alas, I live in NYC), as a healthy alternative to food I already love eating. Meal replacements are definitely not covering that niche for me.
- sohamsankaran 7y ago
  Perhaps "taste absolutely terrible to me" would have been better phrasing. I think Soylent has its place, and I'm glad it exists. In terms of price, food is expensive to make (especially in the Bay Area), but as we scale we think we can leverage automation to bring the price down to $6, which is not as cheap as but in the same ballpark as Soylent.
- inferiorhuman 7y ago
  Saying Soylent tastes like food is a bit of a stretch.
  - perl4ever 7y ago
    Increasingly, it seems like Indian restaurants where I live are including southern Indian menu items with lentils, and I was happy to see something beyond the usual at first and then disappointed that stuff like dosa, medhu vada, etc, seemed pretty meh. And I've tried mulligatawny soup at one of those places and been really disappointed. But there is an Indian/Pakistani restaurant near me that has lentil soup I really liked and in fact that's what inspired me to start experimenting at home as I was afraid they would go out of business. Some months ago I made lentil soup and through sheer luck, happened on a combination of spices and other ingredients that made it really, really good. Unfortunately I didn't take good notes, and I'm not sure how to recreate it. So what I'm saying is lentils can be anything you want, it's all in the execution.
blunte 7y ago
Can't get more niche than this! But it's great. If I lived in SF, I would try it.
pj_mukh 7y ago
This is awesome. Is this $12/meal for one portion, or is it two portions?
- sohamsankaran 7y ago
  12/portion (500 cals)
boltzmannbrain 7y ago
Excited to try this! Saag is one of my favorite foods but almost impossible to eat at restaurants because of dietary restrictions (lactose-intolerant and keto). So I've been making my own healthy versions at home for years. It would be super helpful if you could include more ingredients info. For example, I would order the saag tofu, but I'm curious where the fat is coming from (assuming coconut milk base, my version is still leaner). Thanks Soham!
- sohamsankaran 7y ago
  Great! The fat is coming from the vegetable oil used in the curry. If you have other specific questions about ingredients, feel free to email me at soham@pashi.com
uniclaude 7y ago
I would have bought some in a heartbeat if it was available in Tokyo. I'd suggest adding a list of ingredients for intolerances and allergies, but this already looks like a very appealing product. Best of luck!
mberning 7y ago
$12/portion is a ridiculous price. Around here you can go to the Indian buffet and eat yourself sick for less than $12.
wenderen 7y ago
I ordered from the website, and got no confirmation email or acknowledgement SMS. No indication of whether this is a one-time thing or a repeat order. I'd stay away from this service until it gets more polished. update: I e-mailed customer support and Soham replied. I'm grateful for the reply.
- sohamsankaran 7y ago
  Hi, sorry about the confusion, I think we emailed you back. At the moment we're only doing one-time orders, you'll have to re-order each week.
  - wenderen 7y ago
    Yep, I came here to update my comment. Thanks for replying!
neeleshs 7y ago
Typically paired with roti or some other bread. Do you plan to introduce something like this? I for one, love this idea, but cannot eat just the saag on it's own :). I use daily harvest, but would switch if I had just a good quality, non-chemical laden roti to go with it!
- sohamsankaran 7y ago
  We currently expect people to provide their own carbs in the form of rice, roti, or bread, but if you email me at soham@pashi.com, we can try to get you some rotis for an additional fee.
antisthenes 7y ago
Please be aware of the underlying business model. You are being sold 500 calories worth of food for $14. That means that for an average, moderately active human, the cost of eating a diet of this is ~$52/day. Yes, it is good macro-nutrients (probably). Yes, you're not going to eat this 4 times a day. Yes, it's vegetarian so you get your signaling points. But this is a $52/day niche meal service is targeted at rich (sub)urbanites living in a bubble of abundant VC money and giant tech. Just be clear about what it is.
- gatsby91 7y ago
  delivery business is hard unless you have massive scale, so like it or not your early adopters will happen to be VC and tech peeps. I don't see anything wrong with that especially if they're just working on an MVP. The author mentions the long term play is automation to cut costs down the road
- adar 7y ago
  Pretty sure almost everyone on this site can do basic multiplication, I'm not sure the aggressive "warning" is necessary.
ccleve 7y ago
Two thoughts: First, $12/pound is too expensive. Yes, I know you've got delivery and other costs, and it's best to start high. But know you'll need to reduce the price over time. Second, consider pitching this to the keto market. Spinach + fat is a great keto item. It's really hard to order keto-friendly takeout. Might fill a niche.
- sohamsankaran 7y ago
  We intend to drop the price aggressively as we scale through volume and automation, but we need to get traction before we can do that. We do have a keto-friendly variant (Classic Saag Paneer), and we'd love to make inroads into the keto market. Would to love to hear your thoughts on how we might do that -- feel free to email me at soham@pashi.com
  - sushid 7y ago
    I’d actually prefer a cheaper package that uses the same ingredient but is frozen and shipped in bulk (e.g. 10+ servings). Any thoughts on something like that?
- itake 7y ago
  $12 for 500 calories. That is barely enough calories for lunch.
  - walshemj 7y ago
    That was my thought, Sagg Panner is normally a side dish
    - sachdevap 7y ago
      Saag paneer is not a side dish in India, or in any Indian restaurants I've been to in North America. Saag paneer served with rice or naan forms a meal just like butter chicken with naan. That Indian meals often have multiple entrees does not make saag paneer a side dish in any way.
  - deleted 7y ago
vedtopkar 7y ago
I have often joked that if I could eat Saag for every meal for the rest of my life I would. This exactly scratches my itch. Not even trying to be funny, this is exactly the type of service I have always wanted (down to the choose-your-protein options). I really hope that there is a lot of demand (though I fear there may not be?). I will surely be a long-time customer.
yumraj 7y ago
Is this just delivering a single Indian dish, in 3 variants, as a service (whatever that means in this context)? Currently available alternatives: 1) go to the nearest Indian restaurant and get it fresh when you need it. 2) use a food delivery service and get if from your favorite Indian restaurant 3) use a frozen variant found in many grocery stores. 4) cook yourself, which is not hard, but we can ignore it in this context. What is the difference/ unique value prop from the above options?
- sohamsankaran 7y ago
  With Pashi, you get to choose the macronutrient ratio, which is not something restaurants expose or that frozen variants allow to customize.
  - Finnucane 7y ago
    But my local place will also offer naan and samosas.
    - 0x8BADF00D 7y ago
      Dunno where you live, but my local places also offer complimentary food poisoning with every meal.
      - brenschluss 7y ago
        Casual racism amirite?
        deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]
        0x8BADF00D 7y ago
        Yeah, I need a skinny little white boy to tell me what’s racist. Get over yourself please.
0x8BADF00D 7y ago
I like that you can customize the food to your body type, nutritional needs, etc. But don’t you think your customers would get bored eating the same thing (even with minor variations) every day?
- sohamsankaran 7y ago
  We absolutely intend to expand to more menu items as we get some traction and people get used to basic concept. We actually started with a version of the service with a lot of dishes, but people were getting very confused about what exactly we'd be serving them.
iamshs 7y ago
Ah, saag. The marvellous old world Punjabi food without the use of tomato, potato etc. My grandma used to have proper procedure for saag. Let mustard grow on an untilled land, pluck the stalks and shed off the mature leaves. Take handful of stalks, make a bundle, chop them into 5 mm pieces. Put them in an earthen clay pot, just submerge the chopped stalks in water and give it a slow open flame. Season with salt. After half an hour, put common roadside ‘weeds’ baathoo, chilayi, spinach. Let it boil for another half an hour. Take the pot off, put handful of maize flour and blend the mixture halfway. Use more maize flour as required, saag should acquire a non-liquid appearance. Serve it in a bowl, with churned raw milk butter. Maize flour roti or ‘tortilla’. And lassi, which is just the by-product of milk churning process. The only old world, pre-wheat Punjabi main course meal that is seriously tasty. It is nutritionally rich as it originated as a farmer’s meal while being easy to make. Good luck serving saag to the world.
- kranner 7y ago
  By "saag" OP means spinach, not mustard leaves. I think the confusion is that saag specifically means saron da saag in Punjab but the meaning changes elsewhere.
oftenwrong 7y ago
I love saag and I love the idea. Is $12-$14 per portion not too high of a price-point for SF? Given a 500 kcal portion, I would guess that is a higher per-cal cost than a takeaway saag dish in my area. I assume most San Franciscans and I are like-minded: if we can get the same thing delivered for less than your service, we will. I have never seen seitan saag offered at any restaurants near me, but I love seitan. I even prefer seitan to meat, despite being a meat eater. I try to eat mostly plants, and I cannot digest lactose, so I usually order vegan chana saag.
- perl4ever 7y ago
  I am a little fuzzy on the difference between saag and palak. I frequently order something with one or the other in the name at a restaurant, and it's generally ok, but some places I like it much better than others. Some recipes seem like they must have more cream or butter, and some are darker and more oily and have more spinach. I prefer the latter, but I'm not sure what ingredients this is reflective of or if it has to do with saag vs. palak.
  - sohamsankaran 7y ago
    Saag is the generic term for a curry of leafy vegetables (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saag https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saag), and Palak means spinach. Saag Paneer and Palak Paneer are often used interchangeably in the US. The quality of these dishes does vary widely from establishment to establishment, despite sharing the same basic construction. If you want a more oil-based Saag, take a look at our Saag tofu, which is dairy-free.
    - perl4ever 7y ago
      Yes, so that is consistent with what I have read previously on the internet, that they are overlapping terms, but what I see empirically in restaurants where I live is that the terms are correlated with two different clusters or modes, and I tend to prefer the ones that are called "palak". Yet you might logically assume that means that I like spinach and the others have different types of greens. I don't believe that is so; it's the rest of it that is the major difference, not the greens.
rayanami 7y ago
Any chance for chicken tikka masala as a future menu option?
sgallant 7y ago
I love the simplicity of this!
Ayesh 7y ago
Sounds like a good idea that r/keto would love to hear. The thing with keto is that you have to stick to it. Current price at $12 feels more expensive. I appreciate the delivery, packaging, and other costs, but I think people would appreciate a better value over time. I think Blue Apron has nailed this. There are bigger variants to pick from, often cheaper, and appeals to keto and other dieters alike.
ultrasounder 7y ago
What next IAAS(idly as a service), DAAS(dal or dosa as a service), SAAS(Sambar as a service). I mean it takes someone with NO cooking skills except making coffee everyday about 30 minutes to throw everything into instapot and simmer it in a sauté pan for like 10 minutes. I saw someone starting a Rasam/Curd rice as a service not too long ago. And people complain that Silicon Valley has peaked.
- ralphstodomingo 7y ago
  I'd like to see you try. As an aside, clearly not everyone is gonna be within their target market, but there is a place for ones who pander to specific palates like these. Live and let live, I guess.
- oasisbob 7y ago
  Would love to see your instapot dosa recipe.
gitgud 7y ago
Reminds me of the article [1] "I sell onions on the internet"... There's a market for everything I guess... [1] https://www.deepsouthventures.com/i-sell-onions-on-the-internet/ https://www.deepsouthventures.com/i-sell-onions-on-the-inter...
pkd 7y ago
I hate to be pedantic about this but it bothers me that in the west, "saag" has been taken to only mean spinach. There are other leafy greens that saag can be made out of: mustard leaves, for example is a popular one. Fenugreek leaves is another one. Anyway, good luck with the business, but it would be great if you promoted the more accurate definition of saag. "spinach _or_ other greens" instead of "spinach _and_ other greens".
- adar 7y ago
  On their website they state at the top: "saag [/sa:g/] is an Indian curry of delicately spiced spinach and other greens" I'm not sure if it was always there or done as a response to you.
romanows 7y ago
Soylent tastes good. I actually crave it some days. Feels like there is plenty of room in this market without resorting to negative advertising but maybe it'll work for you...
kartayyar 7y ago
Okay I hate to be blunt about this: though this is super high calorie food. All 3 variants listed are fabulously unhealthy coming in at 500 calories per serving. If you want to pitch this as a tastier product and pursue that angle, that's one story but pitching this as "healthy" is quite flawed.
- servercobra 7y ago
  How is 500 calories unhealthy? As far as I can tell, this is designed to be a whole meal, and coming in at 500 calories is pretty spot on for one meal (if a little low, which is nice so I can add a side).
- Skunkleton 7y ago
  If you ate it for all three meals, you would only be at 1500 calories for the day. What are you getting at? Since when do calories automatically make something unhealthy?
Semiapies 7y ago
I just wanted to say that this is one of the best founder-talks-to-HN threads I've seen on the site in a while. Great work explaining the service, and good luck with it.
wurst_case 7y ago
If I were to do 3 meals a day (1500 calories is low but let's say I snack inbetween meals) and $13 per meal on average, this will cost me $39/day, $273/wk, $1092/m. Maybe that's unfair. Maybe I use this to supplement one meal a day and cook the rest. That's $364/m to supplement lunch and I'd still probably have to cook some rice to go along with that. I just checked my local Indian restaurants on Postmates in San Francisco. The highest priced one was at $14.99 but ~%90 of the other options were from $8.99-$10.99 and I pay for Postmates free delivery which is 7.99/m so pretty much negligible. The other thing is that by buying from local restaurants, I can actually make a deal with the owners if I wanted to replace all my meals for the month. Let's say the catering discount I can get is %20, which is usually what you can get on large orders ahead of time. I'm looking at $10-$2=$8 a meal or $672/m to supplement all of my meals. Finally, I've seen your response to this point elsewhere which seems to be, but those restaurants won't provide the macro nutrient breakdown or have different options for proteins. Just in the dishes provided around my house there's chicken, lamb, tofu, cheese, beans. The only thing missing really is seitan. And if I'm ordering from the same place consistently, can't I figure out what the macros are by asking the chef for an ingredient list? One and done. I wish you all the best, and I actually love this idea but I can't make this work in my head. To me this just seems like a new, order only, expensive Indian place opened up near me. If you could reduce prices to at least meet brick and mortar restraunts then I'd consider using your service occasionally if it tastes good.
- thelittleone 7y ago
  "can't I figure out what the macros are by asking the chef for an ingredient list?" It's possible but the burden of doing so means most people would abandon it after a few days.
  - logiclabs 7y ago
    If you're eating the same meal every day and/or every meal, it's actually pretty easy..
- rubenswieringa 7y ago
  …so your point is that ordering take-out every day of the month is too expensive and that you have to cook for yourself to make ends meet? I warmheartedly welcome you to the club.
jelliclesfarm 7y ago
Hi, I feel you. I am from the South of India and we had greens everyday. Quick and easy. 1. have you considered partnering with farms? Especially indoor farms that focus on lettuce but can also grow Asian/Indian greens. 2. How do you think you will scale? 3. How did you arrive at that pricing? If you would like to chat, my email is = handle at gmail.
jelliclesfarm 7y ago
After checking the website, why ‘never frozen’? This is perishable and flash freezing and thawing isn’t a bad idea at all. $12 is too expensive as many here have opined. Having said that, you can’t make a profit..never mind break even at that price point on a never-frozen, always fresh, delivered to doorstep stand alone perishable $12/order item. I have done this model with ghee before. And it’s was only one ingrident: butter and it was made in a commissary kitchen/permitted/licensed shared kitchen. And I could make large batches as it was not perishable. With rent, insurance, packaging, delivery, CoG, labour and other expenses, you will have to sell a few hundred per week on one end and several thousands per month just to get over the hump. I know this. I have lived this. Freeze it. It’s not so bad. It’s actually a good thing for perishable food. Good luck.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
pjs_ 7y ago
eating sag aloo ... with my aggy crew...
witten 7y ago
What about the high level of oxalates in spinach, the over-consumption of which can result in kidney stones[1]? [1] https://nutritionfacts.org/video/oxalates-in-spinach-and-kidney-stones-should-we-be-concerned/ https://nutritionfacts.org/video/oxalates-in-spinach-and-kid...
- sohamsankaran 7y ago
  There is a fair amount of debate about this, with a number of high-quality studies such as (https://jasn.asnjournals.org/content/18/7/2198 https://jasn.asnjournals.org/content/18/7/2198) coming to the conclusion that the additional risk is minimal even with low calcium consumption.
aabajian 7y ago
Okay, my favorite Indian dish is shrimp saag. Please add a shrimp option.
girvo 7y ago
How good is Seitan! My partner is vegan, and it’s been awesome to experiment with
mattlondon 7y ago
I like the pun on on XaaS, but the price just seems outrageous. Why so high? I know UK is not your market, but here is a comparison of the first two grocery store own-brand saags I found: £1.65/$2 - https://groceries.morrisons.com/webshop/product/Morrisons-The-Best-Saag-Aloo-/456278011 https://groceries.morrisons.com/webshop/product/Morrisons-Th... £2/$2.43 - https://www.tesco.com/groceries/en-GB/products/293944759 https://www.tesco.com/groceries/en-GB/products/293944759 Perhaps you don't get as much protein with these though. (Incidentally why is everything obsessed with protein these days? Seems like every food you buy now says "source of protein!" Or "contains protein!)
- KaiserPro 7y ago
  for the prices described you could go to a real Indian place and get some fresh naans as well. Speaking of which, I think I know what I'm having for dinner tonight.
- stedaniels 7y ago
  The whole protein, protein, protein, thing is because it's supposed to make you feel fuller, so you don't overeat. Plus, you know, carbs are bad, so protein!
- jnwatson 7y ago
  Eating fat is going to kill you, consuming sugar certainly will. The only thing left is protein.
masukomi 7y ago
ignoring the price issue which many have discussed, I love the MVP aspect of this. only one thing to cook and then throw in the protein add-on. I love that you're obviously driving this around yourself. If you can make the pricing more competitive with local delivery (which would also have more options) and figure out how to ship like Blue Apron I think I'd happily sign up. Even more so if there were additional meals added, but for an MVP to test the idea this is great.
peternicky 7y ago
I believe this is a niche service and I wish you best of luck and hope you succeed. I would love to understand how you produce the product currently (are you outsourcing to a local commissary and if so, how are you controlling the quality?) and how you intend to scale the business. It's been mentioned here multiple times that the idea is equivalent to a restaurant which offers delivery followed by comments suggesting the difference between your service and a traditional restaurant is that you offer "fully customizable calorie counts and macronutrient proportions". How do you ensure consistency? How would you handle competition?
sharadov 7y ago
Will take you less than 30 mins to make saag paneer in an instant pot.
shaunxcode 7y ago
Just ate first portion and it was delicious! Had the tofu version but will try seitan next time.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
quickthrower2 7y ago
I think the issue here is the price. It’s definitely premium end and it makes it hard to justify as a regular spend for most people.

303 points by sohamsankaran 7y ago

Hi HN, I’m Soham Sankaran, the founder of Pashi, the company behind Saag as a Service (https://saag.pashi.com https://saag.pashi.com). We offer three macronutrient-portioned variants of Saag (delicately-spiced Indian spinach curry): High Fat Saag Paneer, Balanced Saag Tofu, and High Protein Saag Seitan. We currently deliver weekly to customers in the SF Bay Area. I started this service because I’ve struggled with nutrition all my life -- with obesity, the threat of my long family history of diabetes, and with getting adequate protein as a vegetarian in the United States. I’ve never had the time to consistently cook all my meals, and it’s hard to know the nutritional value of food you’re getting at restaurants unless you stick to salads or chain fast food (which is required to have nutritional information but is routinely off by 20-40%). Even if you know the nutritional values of the food you’re eating, attempting to log all your meals and snacks in a journal or an app like MyFitnessPal can be a massive time-sink and mental load. ‘Complete nutrition’ products like Soylent and Huel were appealing for relieving the physical and cognitive burden of dealing with nutrition all the time, but I perceived two major issues with them: 1) They taste absolutely terrible. These products are a massive step backward from thousands of years of accumulated culinary experience, and I don’t believe that most people are willing to forgo the pleasure that comes from eating real food three times a day, even if some kind of meal replacement is the right choice for their health. The biggest issue with diet plans and nutrition studies of all kinds is pervasively low adherence -- it just isn’t possible to get most people to consistently eat food that doesn’t taste good. 2) The retail versions of these products are not particularly customizable. Different people have different nutritional needs -- certainly calorically, but also in terms of macronutrient proportions. A female weightlifter and a male endurance runner have different bodies and different goals, resulting in different optimal nutritional profiles. Feeding them the same one-size-fits-all meal replacement is a mistake. I stated Pashi to provide a real-food based nutrition service that tastes great but still retains the desirable characteristics of things like Soylent. The long term vision is to usher in a world where people can eat real, tasty food that is seamlessly customized to the specific nutritional profile they desire. I initially soft-launched Pashi as a producer of entire meals with fully customizable calorie counts and macronutrient proportions, but this seemed to confuse people and didn't get very much traction. As a result, we’ve scaled back the focus to one of the most popular, customizable, and easily explainable foods on our menu -- Saag. If this gets some traction, we’ll introduce more fine-grained nutritional customization and more menu items depending on the feedback we get from our users. I’d love to get the community’s thoughts on this and answer any questions here or via email (soham@pashi.com).

llarsson 7y ago

Lovely idea and had I been in the area you target, I would have ordered some, for sure! Do you deliver yourself, or are you using a delivery service?

sohamsankaran 7y ago
Thanks! We currently handle delivery ourselves. What area are you in? If you're in the Bay Area but not in our coverage area, email me (soham@pashi.com) and we can try to make it work.
- llarsson 7y ago
  Sadly I don't think you'll be covering Sweden any time soon. :)
  - sohamsankaran 7y ago
    That is likely a ways away, but if you email me I'll make sure you're the first to find out when we get there!
    - bluebluetimes 7y ago
      is there a saag vegan version / no sugar, no butter no animal products?
- jakear 7y ago
  I notice your zip codes aren't numerically sorted, at first I thought mine (94117) wasn't available, because it wasn't in the first block of 94. Might want to sort them, or just allow people to type it in. Cool product though! I'm ordering some now.
  - sohamsankaran 7y ago
    Nice catch, fixed!

spraak 7y ago

Isn't it ironic [1], don't you think, that the vegan option has less carbs than the 'keto friendly' option? Tofu has less carbs than milk. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ironic_(song) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ironic_(song)

sohamsankaran 7y ago
The Saag Paneer option has a lot more fat, which is why we targeted that at folks looking for a keto-friendly option, but this is indeed somewhat amusing.
quickthrower2 7y ago
Milk is quite carby.

mipmap04 7y ago

When I saw Saag as a Service I was hoping for some kind of API where I could place and order through curl or something! Kinda like the EverQuest 2 pizza command. Good luck!

sohamsankaran 7y ago
The long-term vision for this, which we hope to fulfill once we get some traction, is an API that allows you to order food such as Saag with arbitrary nutritional values (within a certain range). We don't have the volume for that yet, but with your help maybe we can get there soon!
- saagarjha 7y ago
  How would you tweak those values?
  - sohamsankaran 7y ago
    Changing the proportions of the ingredients -- in the case of saag, we could mix and match paneer, tofu, seitan, and a side of a carb like rice to produce any reasonable macronutrient ratio.

ykevinator 7y ago

I love this idea, I would sign up today if you delivered in New York.

sohamsankaran 7y ago
Shoot me an email at soham@pashi.com, if we get enough interest in the area we might be able to make it happen!
- bluebluetimes 7y ago
  pls add daal as a service

spraak 7y ago

This is really nice! As a Hindu & vegan I wish I lived in your delivery zone :) (I live way out in the Pacific ocean, though) In any case, cool to see you're trying a more narrow approach, and the website explains things well and looks great. One question I was left with is how big is the portion? I may have missed that. And if this were available to me I'd be eager for the next available item to be chana masala. Thanks for sharing

sohamsankaran 7y ago
Each portion is 500 calories. We serve them in 16oz containers, but the volume of Saag depends on the variant ordered (to make sure they are all the same number of calories).

paultopia 7y ago

Does anyone else who went to Stanford in the 00's remember Tiffin Dinner? Delicious homemade Indian food delivery, sadly closed. That got me through the quarter when I had a broken ankle..:

83457 7y ago
Speaking of tiffins, here is a video of the lunch delivery system in Mumbai I think others will enjoy... https://youtu.be/dX-0el2wuEU https://youtu.be/dX-0el2wuEU

2pointsomone 7y ago

Love it! But this is Palak as a Service, not Saag as a Service. Saag, I think, is mustard leaves

sohamsankaran 7y ago
My understanding is that Saag is the generic term for a leafy vegetable curry of this kind (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saag https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saag). Mustard is Sarson, if my Hindi isn't failing me.
- 2pointsomone 7y ago
  Oh yes of course, it's sarson. My bad. Big misconception corrected. My only association with saag was sarson ka saag, before I came to America, where I found it interchangeably used with palak in palak paneer.
- kinkrtyavimoodh 7y ago
  From the website it looks like you are using spinach for this. In which case, Palak as a Service is actually the less misleading term. People associate Saag with either mustard leaves or at least a mix of green leaves. If it's only Palak, calling it saag might not be technically wrong but it's still not what people associate with that name.
  - sohamsankaran 7y ago
    We use a Palak-based Saag that has a mix of other green leaves as well.

mcthrowaway123z 7y ago

I would love to order some but it doesn't appear you deliver to 94607 (West Oakland).

sohamsankaran 7y ago
Email me your address at soham@pashi.com and we'll try to make it work!

prithvi24 7y ago

Really like this concept! As a vegetarian, I have come across many other services that focus on nutritionally customizable products, but when it comes to vegetarian options, the macros / protein numbers leave a lot to be desired. I've also noticed that a lot of the vegetarian options available at restaurants in the bay tend to be much more carb heavy than I would prefer, and it takes a lot of overhead to research / optimize each and every meal. I'm always looking for ways to algorithmically optimize my meals, and currently Chipotle and their app does the best job of enabling this in a standardized way (can pretty easily get nutrition info and hook it into other apps) , but it ends up being pretty boring on a routine basis. Something like this, with an expanded product line would be really useful.

sohamsankaran 7y ago
Absolutely, these are the exact reasons I started this. We plan to expand to more dishes as we scale, but for now, if you're in the Bay Area, I hope we can at least help liberate you from the monotony of Chipotle.
- bluebluetimes 7y ago
  chipotle for indian / vegan/ vegetarian food is the holy grail
  - jakear 7y ago
    Had a few of those around my place growing up (Nikki’s, around Orange County, CA), but they’ve all gone out of business by now. Absolute tragedy - the food was terrific and dirt cheap.
  - sremani 7y ago
    I do not recollect the name, but there is an Indian restaurant with that concept near New Brunswick NJ.
  - aripickar 7y ago
    There’s a place in Berkeley called urban turbann, that fills the niche for Indian chipotle. Wish they would expand.

pkaye 7y ago

Looks like someone needs to start Naan as a service to complement this.

selimthegrim 7y ago
Rotimatic debuting an app in 3...2...1...

shaunxcode 7y ago

Please add 95014! I would order this daily!

sohamsankaran 7y ago
We do have 95014, it's selectable from the dropdown! Send me an email at soham@pashi.com if you have trouble ordering.
- shaunxcode 7y ago
  I must have missed it before but I see it now. Excited to try it out.

nngrey 7y ago

Please add Portland and PaaS (Paneer makani as a Service)!

wwweston 7y ago

Trader Joe's seemed to discontinue their $2/8oz pouch packaged saag paneer about a year ago, and I haven't yet figured out how to make one I like on my own, and even when I do, I might not always want to spend the time on it. Hope I get a chance to try this in LA before too long. :)

devtanna 7y ago

Love the idea and the implementation! I am living in Dubai and have the exact same struggle with finding an appropriate vegetarian meal delivered that is healthy and not a salad. I'm a software engineer too and would love to help out with the tech if you need.

sohamsankaran 7y ago
Feel free to email me (soham@pashi.com), happy to talk!

somepig 7y ago

What benefit do you provide over the Indian place down the block with similar or even cheaper pricing? These prices are absurdly expensive even for us overpaid tech folk.

personjerry 7y ago
$12 per meal is "absurdly expensive"? I think it's comparable to eating out.
- jakear 7y ago
  Yep, and no tip, drink overcharging, etc.
- knubie 7y ago
  $12 for 500 calories is very expensive. For a typical 2500kcal diet that's $60 per day.
- somepig 7y ago
  I mean... that's my point. I can plan ahead and pay $12 to have something delivered and then heat it up myself, or I can pay $12 to pick it up already hot and ready to eat, on demand.
- GordonS 7y ago
  For a spinach curry (saag or saag paneer), yes, $12 is very expensive. In my local asian grocery store, they stock a lot of vacuum packed Indian meals, all of which have nothing "dodgy" in the list of ingredients, and all of which are actually really good - they cost the equivelant of around $2.5 each. My local Indian takeaway restaurants sell saag paneer for around $4 USD.
perspective1 7y ago
I had the same thought before seeing how excited many of the commenters here are about it! I guess the market exists and we're just not in it.
sohamsankaran 7y ago

muralimadhu 7y ago

Great idea, a couple of comments. - please let us know how you source your ingredients. Spinach is one of the more pesticide ridden vegetables. And bad quality dairy may do more harm than good. - Seitan and tofu are not particularly healthy. Gluten and soy are known to be inflammatory foods and cause a lot of side affects. Would love to see a dairy-free, gluten-free, soy-free, organic version of this. Then it’s a truly hearty meal that I would order

tshanmu 7y ago

Nice one! Did not realise the market for vegan cooked food in the bay area is this big. How are you planning to scale saag as a service? I am tempted to ask after looking at your profile, is the cooking/portioning/packing done by a robot? is that your secret sauce behind scale up possibilities? All the best! looks tasty...

sohamsankaran 7y ago
We do have plans to use automation to scale in the long-term. If you're curious about details, shoot me an email and I'd be happy to talk further.

fragmede 7y ago

Minor technical thought - IMO have potential users customers enter their zip code allows you to see where potential future demand is. Other than that, the site looks great! Bonus points for simplifying down to an MVP, and S(pinach)aaS has a really good ring to it for the SF HN crowd. Am also looking forwards to non-spinach options! (I'm allergic)

xwdv 7y ago

I take offense to the high fat saag being portrayed by some fat bastard playing at an arcade machine while the other two images are of fit people doing healthy exercises. A high fat meal is key to getting energy for grueling tasks. This should be changed.

sohamsankaran 7y ago
This was intended to represent a 'Classic' arcade game (Saag Paneer is the traditional preparation), not as a comment on physical activity. My apologies for any offense caused, and I'm happy to take suggestions for a new illustration. Email me at soham@pashi.com if you'd like to talk further.
- xwdv 7y ago
  The other images are comments on physical activity though, so it’s not hard to see how an image of a video gamer is also a comment on the physical activity of those who eat Saag Paneer. If you are going for a classic vibe, then just have an Indian man in classic Indian clothing doing something classically Indian, or just stirring a pot or something. An arcade machine is not an association readily made with food.
- big_chungus 7y ago
  In fairness to you, I wouldn't really call this "offensive". It does possibly play into the "fat, game-addicted neckbeard" stereotype, but this is more likely a case of a startup not having the resources to do extensive testing on different imagery. You could try running some a/b tests with different logos, though, and measure your conversion.
- Semiapies 7y ago
  I like the current image I'm seeing, with a thinner person playing the arcade game.
TomMarius 7y ago
I don't think the guy looks fat. I had to recheck for other images because I couldn't believe you mean that one.

andreilys 7y ago

“They taste absolutely terrible” That’s your opinion, I personally think it tastes great and haven’t had issues drinking it over the past 4 years. Given that Soylent has continues to grow signals that other consumers agree (investors also agree given they’ve raised $50m led google ventures). Also your product costs $12 per 500 cal (vs. $2.42 for 400cal for soylent) which is a huge selling point for people that drink soylent (it’s affordable, convenient and better than most fast food alternative)

SolaceQuantum 7y ago
I think it ultimately depends on the circle of people and what kind of cuisine they have normally. I think Soylent tastes quite mediocre- but my favorite foods are curries and vinegar/chili oil sauces. (Sad to say I often have meal replacements as punishment food.) I would definitely try this saag as a service(alas, I live in NYC), as a healthy alternative to food I already love eating. Meal replacements are definitely not covering that niche for me.
sohamsankaran 7y ago
Perhaps "taste absolutely terrible to me" would have been better phrasing. I think Soylent has its place, and I'm glad it exists. In terms of price, food is expensive to make (especially in the Bay Area), but as we scale we think we can leverage automation to bring the price down to $6, which is not as cheap as but in the same ballpark as Soylent.
inferiorhuman 7y ago
Saying Soylent tastes like food is a bit of a stretch.
- perl4ever 7y ago
  Increasingly, it seems like Indian restaurants where I live are including southern Indian menu items with lentils, and I was happy to see something beyond the usual at first and then disappointed that stuff like dosa, medhu vada, etc, seemed pretty meh. And I've tried mulligatawny soup at one of those places and been really disappointed. But there is an Indian/Pakistani restaurant near me that has lentil soup I really liked and in fact that's what inspired me to start experimenting at home as I was afraid they would go out of business. Some months ago I made lentil soup and through sheer luck, happened on a combination of spices and other ingredients that made it really, really good. Unfortunately I didn't take good notes, and I'm not sure how to recreate it. So what I'm saying is lentils can be anything you want, it's all in the execution.

blunte 7y ago

Can't get more niche than this! But it's great. If I lived in SF, I would try it.

pj_mukh 7y ago

This is awesome. Is this $12/meal for one portion, or is it two portions?

sohamsankaran 7y ago
12/portion (500 cals)

boltzmannbrain 7y ago

Excited to try this! Saag is one of my favorite foods but almost impossible to eat at restaurants because of dietary restrictions (lactose-intolerant and keto). So I've been making my own healthy versions at home for years. It would be super helpful if you could include more ingredients info. For example, I would order the saag tofu, but I'm curious where the fat is coming from (assuming coconut milk base, my version is still leaner). Thanks Soham!

sohamsankaran 7y ago
Great! The fat is coming from the vegetable oil used in the curry. If you have other specific questions about ingredients, feel free to email me at soham@pashi.com

uniclaude 7y ago

I would have bought some in a heartbeat if it was available in Tokyo. I'd suggest adding a list of ingredients for intolerances and allergies, but this already looks like a very appealing product. Best of luck!

mberning 7y ago

$12/portion is a ridiculous price. Around here you can go to the Indian buffet and eat yourself sick for less than $12.

wenderen 7y ago

I ordered from the website, and got no confirmation email or acknowledgement SMS. No indication of whether this is a one-time thing or a repeat order. I'd stay away from this service until it gets more polished. update: I e-mailed customer support and Soham replied. I'm grateful for the reply.

sohamsankaran 7y ago
Hi, sorry about the confusion, I think we emailed you back. At the moment we're only doing one-time orders, you'll have to re-order each week.
- wenderen 7y ago
  Yep, I came here to update my comment. Thanks for replying!

neeleshs 7y ago

Typically paired with roti or some other bread. Do you plan to introduce something like this? I for one, love this idea, but cannot eat just the saag on it's own :). I use daily harvest, but would switch if I had just a good quality, non-chemical laden roti to go with it!

sohamsankaran 7y ago
We currently expect people to provide their own carbs in the form of rice, roti, or bread, but if you email me at soham@pashi.com, we can try to get you some rotis for an additional fee.

antisthenes 7y ago

Please be aware of the underlying business model. You are being sold 500 calories worth of food for $14. That means that for an average, moderately active human, the cost of eating a diet of this is ~$52/day. Yes, it is good macro-nutrients (probably). Yes, you're not going to eat this 4 times a day. Yes, it's vegetarian so you get your signaling points. But this is a $52/day niche meal service is targeted at rich (sub)urbanites living in a bubble of abundant VC money and giant tech. Just be clear about what it is.

gatsby91 7y ago
delivery business is hard unless you have massive scale, so like it or not your early adopters will happen to be VC and tech peeps. I don't see anything wrong with that especially if they're just working on an MVP. The author mentions the long term play is automation to cut costs down the road
adar 7y ago
Pretty sure almost everyone on this site can do basic multiplication, I'm not sure the aggressive "warning" is necessary.

ccleve 7y ago

Two thoughts: First, $12/pound is too expensive. Yes, I know you've got delivery and other costs, and it's best to start high. But know you'll need to reduce the price over time. Second, consider pitching this to the keto market. Spinach + fat is a great keto item. It's really hard to order keto-friendly takeout. Might fill a niche.

sohamsankaran 7y ago
We intend to drop the price aggressively as we scale through volume and automation, but we need to get traction before we can do that. We do have a keto-friendly variant (Classic Saag Paneer), and we'd love to make inroads into the keto market. Would to love to hear your thoughts on how we might do that -- feel free to email me at soham@pashi.com
- sushid 7y ago
  I’d actually prefer a cheaper package that uses the same ingredient but is frozen and shipped in bulk (e.g. 10+ servings). Any thoughts on something like that?
itake 7y ago
$12 for 500 calories. That is barely enough calories for lunch.
- walshemj 7y ago
  That was my thought, Sagg Panner is normally a side dish
  - sachdevap 7y ago
    Saag paneer is not a side dish in India, or in any Indian restaurants I've been to in North America. Saag paneer served with rice or naan forms a meal just like butter chicken with naan. That Indian meals often have multiple entrees does not make saag paneer a side dish in any way.
- deleted 7y ago

vedtopkar 7y ago

I have often joked that if I could eat Saag for every meal for the rest of my life I would. This exactly scratches my itch. Not even trying to be funny, this is exactly the type of service I have always wanted (down to the choose-your-protein options). I really hope that there is a lot of demand (though I fear there may not be?). I will surely be a long-time customer.

yumraj 7y ago

Is this just delivering a single Indian dish, in 3 variants, as a service (whatever that means in this context)? Currently available alternatives: 1) go to the nearest Indian restaurant and get it fresh when you need it. 2) use a food delivery service and get if from your favorite Indian restaurant 3) use a frozen variant found in many grocery stores. 4) cook yourself, which is not hard, but we can ignore it in this context. What is the difference/ unique value prop from the above options?

sohamsankaran 7y ago
With Pashi, you get to choose the macronutrient ratio, which is not something restaurants expose or that frozen variants allow to customize.
- Finnucane 7y ago
  But my local place will also offer naan and samosas.
  - 0x8BADF00D 7y ago
    Dunno where you live, but my local places also offer complimentary food poisoning with every meal.
    - brenschluss 7y ago
      Casual racism amirite?
      - deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]
      - 0x8BADF00D 7y ago
        Yeah, I need a skinny little white boy to tell me what’s racist. Get over yourself please.

0x8BADF00D 7y ago

I like that you can customize the food to your body type, nutritional needs, etc. But don’t you think your customers would get bored eating the same thing (even with minor variations) every day?

sohamsankaran 7y ago
We absolutely intend to expand to more menu items as we get some traction and people get used to basic concept. We actually started with a version of the service with a lot of dishes, but people were getting very confused about what exactly we'd be serving them.

iamshs 7y ago

Ah, saag. The marvellous old world Punjabi food without the use of tomato, potato etc. My grandma used to have proper procedure for saag. Let mustard grow on an untilled land, pluck the stalks and shed off the mature leaves. Take handful of stalks, make a bundle, chop them into 5 mm pieces. Put them in an earthen clay pot, just submerge the chopped stalks in water and give it a slow open flame. Season with salt. After half an hour, put common roadside ‘weeds’ baathoo, chilayi, spinach. Let it boil for another half an hour. Take the pot off, put handful of maize flour and blend the mixture halfway. Use more maize flour as required, saag should acquire a non-liquid appearance. Serve it in a bowl, with churned raw milk butter. Maize flour roti or ‘tortilla’. And lassi, which is just the by-product of milk churning process. The only old world, pre-wheat Punjabi main course meal that is seriously tasty. It is nutritionally rich as it originated as a farmer’s meal while being easy to make. Good luck serving saag to the world.

kranner 7y ago
By "saag" OP means spinach, not mustard leaves. I think the confusion is that saag specifically means saron da saag in Punjab but the meaning changes elsewhere.

oftenwrong 7y ago

I love saag and I love the idea. Is $12-$14 per portion not too high of a price-point for SF? Given a 500 kcal portion, I would guess that is a higher per-cal cost than a takeaway saag dish in my area. I assume most San Franciscans and I are like-minded: if we can get the same thing delivered for less than your service, we will. I have never seen seitan saag offered at any restaurants near me, but I love seitan. I even prefer seitan to meat, despite being a meat eater. I try to eat mostly plants, and I cannot digest lactose, so I usually order vegan chana saag.

perl4ever 7y ago
I am a little fuzzy on the difference between saag and palak. I frequently order something with one or the other in the name at a restaurant, and it's generally ok, but some places I like it much better than others. Some recipes seem like they must have more cream or butter, and some are darker and more oily and have more spinach. I prefer the latter, but I'm not sure what ingredients this is reflective of or if it has to do with saag vs. palak.
- sohamsankaran 7y ago
  Saag is the generic term for a curry of leafy vegetables (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saag https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saag), and Palak means spinach. Saag Paneer and Palak Paneer are often used interchangeably in the US. The quality of these dishes does vary widely from establishment to establishment, despite sharing the same basic construction. If you want a more oil-based Saag, take a look at our Saag tofu, which is dairy-free.
  - perl4ever 7y ago
    Yes, so that is consistent with what I have read previously on the internet, that they are overlapping terms, but what I see empirically in restaurants where I live is that the terms are correlated with two different clusters or modes, and I tend to prefer the ones that are called "palak". Yet you might logically assume that means that I like spinach and the others have different types of greens. I don't believe that is so; it's the rest of it that is the major difference, not the greens.

rayanami 7y ago

Any chance for chicken tikka masala as a future menu option?

sgallant 7y ago

I love the simplicity of this!

Ayesh 7y ago

Sounds like a good idea that r/keto would love to hear. The thing with keto is that you have to stick to it. Current price at $12 feels more expensive. I appreciate the delivery, packaging, and other costs, but I think people would appreciate a better value over time. I think Blue Apron has nailed this. There are bigger variants to pick from, often cheaper, and appeals to keto and other dieters alike.

ultrasounder 7y ago

What next IAAS(idly as a service), DAAS(dal or dosa as a service), SAAS(Sambar as a service). I mean it takes someone with NO cooking skills except making coffee everyday about 30 minutes to throw everything into instapot and simmer it in a sauté pan for like 10 minutes. I saw someone starting a Rasam/Curd rice as a service not too long ago. And people complain that Silicon Valley has peaked.

ralphstodomingo 7y ago
I'd like to see you try. As an aside, clearly not everyone is gonna be within their target market, but there is a place for ones who pander to specific palates like these. Live and let live, I guess.
oasisbob 7y ago
Would love to see your instapot dosa recipe.

gitgud 7y ago

Reminds me of the article [1] "I sell onions on the internet"... There's a market for everything I guess... [1] https://www.deepsouthventures.com/i-sell-onions-on-the-internet/ https://www.deepsouthventures.com/i-sell-onions-on-the-inter...

pkd 7y ago

I hate to be pedantic about this but it bothers me that in the west, "saag" has been taken to only mean spinach. There are other leafy greens that saag can be made out of: mustard leaves, for example is a popular one. Fenugreek leaves is another one. Anyway, good luck with the business, but it would be great if you promoted the more accurate definition of saag. "spinach _or_ other greens" instead of "spinach _and_ other greens".

adar 7y ago
On their website they state at the top: "saag [/sa:g/] is an Indian curry of delicately spiced spinach and other greens" I'm not sure if it was always there or done as a response to you.

romanows 7y ago

Soylent tastes good. I actually crave it some days. Feels like there is plenty of room in this market without resorting to negative advertising but maybe it'll work for you...

kartayyar 7y ago

Okay I hate to be blunt about this: though this is super high calorie food. All 3 variants listed are fabulously unhealthy coming in at 500 calories per serving. If you want to pitch this as a tastier product and pursue that angle, that's one story but pitching this as "healthy" is quite flawed.

servercobra 7y ago
How is 500 calories unhealthy? As far as I can tell, this is designed to be a whole meal, and coming in at 500 calories is pretty spot on for one meal (if a little low, which is nice so I can add a side).
Skunkleton 7y ago
If you ate it for all three meals, you would only be at 1500 calories for the day. What are you getting at? Since when do calories automatically make something unhealthy?

Semiapies 7y ago

I just wanted to say that this is one of the best founder-talks-to-HN threads I've seen on the site in a while. Great work explaining the service, and good luck with it.

wurst_case 7y ago

If I were to do 3 meals a day (1500 calories is low but let's say I snack inbetween meals) and $13 per meal on average, this will cost me $39/day, $273/wk, $1092/m. Maybe that's unfair. Maybe I use this to supplement one meal a day and cook the rest. That's $364/m to supplement lunch and I'd still probably have to cook some rice to go along with that. I just checked my local Indian restaurants on Postmates in San Francisco. The highest priced one was at $14.99 but ~%90 of the other options were from $8.99-$10.99 and I pay for Postmates free delivery which is 7.99/m so pretty much negligible. The other thing is that by buying from local restaurants, I can actually make a deal with the owners if I wanted to replace all my meals for the month. Let's say the catering discount I can get is %20, which is usually what you can get on large orders ahead of time. I'm looking at $10-$2=$8 a meal or $672/m to supplement all of my meals. Finally, I've seen your response to this point elsewhere which seems to be, but those restaurants won't provide the macro nutrient breakdown or have different options for proteins. Just in the dishes provided around my house there's chicken, lamb, tofu, cheese, beans. The only thing missing really is seitan. And if I'm ordering from the same place consistently, can't I figure out what the macros are by asking the chef for an ingredient list? One and done. I wish you all the best, and I actually love this idea but I can't make this work in my head. To me this just seems like a new, order only, expensive Indian place opened up near me. If you could reduce prices to at least meet brick and mortar restraunts then I'd consider using your service occasionally if it tastes good.

thelittleone 7y ago
"can't I figure out what the macros are by asking the chef for an ingredient list?" It's possible but the burden of doing so means most people would abandon it after a few days.
- logiclabs 7y ago
  If you're eating the same meal every day and/or every meal, it's actually pretty easy..
rubenswieringa 7y ago
…so your point is that ordering take-out every day of the month is too expensive and that you have to cook for yourself to make ends meet? I warmheartedly welcome you to the club.

jelliclesfarm 7y ago

Hi, I feel you. I am from the South of India and we had greens everyday. Quick and easy. 1. have you considered partnering with farms? Especially indoor farms that focus on lettuce but can also grow Asian/Indian greens. 2. How do you think you will scale? 3. How did you arrive at that pricing? If you would like to chat, my email is = handle at gmail.

jelliclesfarm 7y ago

After checking the website, why ‘never frozen’? This is perishable and flash freezing and thawing isn’t a bad idea at all. $12 is too expensive as many here have opined. Having said that, you can’t make a profit..never mind break even at that price point on a never-frozen, always fresh, delivered to doorstep stand alone perishable $12/order item. I have done this model with ghee before. And it’s was only one ingrident: butter and it was made in a commissary kitchen/permitted/licensed shared kitchen. And I could make large batches as it was not perishable. With rent, insurance, packaging, delivery, CoG, labour and other expenses, you will have to sell a few hundred per week on one end and several thousands per month just to get over the hump. I know this. I have lived this. Freeze it. It’s not so bad. It’s actually a good thing for perishable food. Good luck.

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pjs_ 7y ago

eating sag aloo ... with my aggy crew...

witten 7y ago

What about the high level of oxalates in spinach, the over-consumption of which can result in kidney stones[1]? [1] https://nutritionfacts.org/video/oxalates-in-spinach-and-kidney-stones-should-we-be-concerned/ https://nutritionfacts.org/video/oxalates-in-spinach-and-kid...

sohamsankaran 7y ago
There is a fair amount of debate about this, with a number of high-quality studies such as (https://jasn.asnjournals.org/content/18/7/2198 https://jasn.asnjournals.org/content/18/7/2198) coming to the conclusion that the additional risk is minimal even with low calcium consumption.

aabajian 7y ago

Okay, my favorite Indian dish is shrimp saag. Please add a shrimp option.

girvo 7y ago

How good is Seitan! My partner is vegan, and it’s been awesome to experiment with

mattlondon 7y ago

I like the pun on on XaaS, but the price just seems outrageous. Why so high? I know UK is not your market, but here is a comparison of the first two grocery store own-brand saags I found: £1.65/$2 - https://groceries.morrisons.com/webshop/product/Morrisons-The-Best-Saag-Aloo-/456278011 https://groceries.morrisons.com/webshop/product/Morrisons-Th... £2/$2.43 - https://www.tesco.com/groceries/en-GB/products/293944759 https://www.tesco.com/groceries/en-GB/products/293944759 Perhaps you don't get as much protein with these though. (Incidentally why is everything obsessed with protein these days? Seems like every food you buy now says "source of protein!" Or "contains protein!)

KaiserPro 7y ago
for the prices described you could go to a real Indian place and get some fresh naans as well. Speaking of which, I think I know what I'm having for dinner tonight.
stedaniels 7y ago
The whole protein, protein, protein, thing is because it's supposed to make you feel fuller, so you don't overeat. Plus, you know, carbs are bad, so protein!
jnwatson 7y ago
Eating fat is going to kill you, consuming sugar certainly will. The only thing left is protein.

masukomi 7y ago

ignoring the price issue which many have discussed, I love the MVP aspect of this. only one thing to cook and then throw in the protein add-on. I love that you're obviously driving this around yourself. If you can make the pricing more competitive with local delivery (which would also have more options) and figure out how to ship like Blue Apron I think I'd happily sign up. Even more so if there were additional meals added, but for an MVP to test the idea this is great.

peternicky 7y ago

I believe this is a niche service and I wish you best of luck and hope you succeed. I would love to understand how you produce the product currently (are you outsourcing to a local commissary and if so, how are you controlling the quality?) and how you intend to scale the business. It's been mentioned here multiple times that the idea is equivalent to a restaurant which offers delivery followed by comments suggesting the difference between your service and a traditional restaurant is that you offer "fully customizable calorie counts and macronutrient proportions". How do you ensure consistency? How would you handle competition?

sharadov 7y ago

Will take you less than 30 mins to make saag paneer in an instant pot.

shaunxcode 7y ago

Just ate first portion and it was delicious! Had the tofu version but will try seitan next time.

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quickthrower2 7y ago

I think the issue here is the price. It’s definitely premium end and it makes it hard to justify as a regular spend for most people.