Healthy, wealthy and wise

"Our mission at Calorie Care is to make it convenient, fun and easy to stick to a healthy diet,” says 28-year-old Cyrus Driver. Gathering a small, but highly talented team of nutritionists and chefs, with welcome assistance from his wife Parinaz, Driver laun-ched his new enterprise of supplying nutritional meals to the health conscious in September 2005. Capitalizing on his management training, Driver made sure all systems were tested and running before he went public. Months were spent setting up a health kitchen.

"The health kitchen is located at Sewri with separate areas for vegetarian and non-vegetarian food preparation and all the utensils are separate,” says Driver. Not surprisingly, Driver attaches immense importance to hygiene. Cooks are required to wear gloves and hair nets, cooking equipment is kept spotless. Not only that, equal importance is paid to delivery. Dishes are packed in sealed containers on plastic trays and covered with a wrap. Each tray is delivered to the door in an individual ice pack to retain freshness. "Anyone is welcome to examine the health kitchen and satisfy himself. As yet, there is no special section for Jain food,” mentions Driver.

His team of nutritionists and chefs spent 10 months researching and developing healthy recipes, he notes. The result? Calorie Care now has what the entrepreneur claims to be India’s largest library of calorie counted recipes — over 125 dishes and growing. All ingredients are natural, cooked without any preservatives or nutritional supplements. Even the oil used for cooking is carefully selected to minimize build-up of cholesterol, Driver adds. At the same time, the customer is not required to give up on favorite dishes like tandoori chicken or, even, idli sambhar. Everything is available, just prepared in a healthy fashion.

Driver’s customers fall into two broad categories. Those who want to lose weight naturally and those who just want to maintain a healthy lifestyle by means of a proper diet. His approach to weight loss is deceptively simple. No pills, artificial supplements or body wraps. Just normal, nutritious food, but less of it. Driver has calculated that reducing one’s normal calorie intake by 500 calories per day can result in a weight loss of two to four kilograms a month, naturally and without side effects.

The unique selling point of Driver’s enterprise is individualized care. "Each new client is interviewed by one of our qualified nutritionists at the Nutrition Centre at Peddar Road. In addition to food preferences and prohibitions, things like cholesterol level and Body Mass Index are measured and a nutrition plan is prepared accordingly,” he explains.

Naturally, quality and service of this caliber does not come cheap. "A typical lunch and two snacks, one for mid-morning and one for tea time, would cost approximately Rs 3,000 per month for vegetarian and Rs 4,000 per month for non-vegetarian. We also supply breakfasts and dinners. A typical snack would be something like tandoori mushrooms, low-calorie quiches, chicken wraps or masala baked beans,” conveys Driver. Those interested can send an e-mail to cyrus@caloriecare.com or call (022) 24122199.

Learning from his own experience, Driver knew that the hectic work schedule of today’s high-flyers did not leave time for leisurely, home-cooked meals or regular fitness regimes. Executives try to justify their unhealthy eating habits by pointing out the inevitability of grabbing fast food on the go. But, Driver was convinced, it does not have to be that way. Nutritional food could be packaged to make it convenient, appetizing and, most of all, healthy. Driver realized that the time for his big idea had arrived.

An entrepreneurial spirit, coupled with a hunger to try something innovative, caused him to quit his job as an investment banker at J. P. Morgan, based in Singapore, and embark upon the entirely unrelated arena of specialty health catering. The son of an Air Force officer, Driver had earlier trod the time-tested path of many gifted young individuals, getting an MBA from the Indian Institute of Management, Ahme­dabad, after obtaining an engineering degree from the Indian Institute of Technology. Says the businessman, "I managed to get a loan of Rs 20 lakhs from Zoroastrian Investment Corporation and founded Calorie Care, India’s first provider of customized, calorie-counted meals.”

"Entrepreneurship within the community seems to be on the way in,” observes Driver, citing the success stories of Boman Irani (Keystone Group), Jimmy Mistry (Della Tecnica) and Karan Bilimoria (Cobra Beer) and the "valuable advice I have received from successful businessmen whom I respect.” Convinced that "you cannot generate as much wealth by serving someone else,” he is happy that he has made his foray into the reigning food industry.

"It matters to me a lot that our small community survives,” mentions Driver who is "saddened with reports on declining numbers and intermarriages but I don’t have any solutions whereby we can preserve our identity and yet be liberal in this cosmopolitan world... In a way you could call me an orthodox but I would not impose my views on others. I’m a very religious person in a personal sense,” he sums up.

With faith in God, Driver sees his innovative concepts reaping dividends. Calorie Care has been appreciated and applauded by well-known fitness experts and food critics. With a current customer base of over 100, he plans to supply calorie-counted meals to hospitals in the near future. Outlets in Delhi and Bangalore are also on his cards. And, like all good innovators, Driver has no doubt that his imitators will soon spring up. But he has the satisfaction of knowing that he started it all.