Rising from grief to provide solace to others

Hironmoy Gogoi is a young and hard working entrepreneur who is popularising traditional, ethnic Assamese food through his food startup, while also creating jobs for rural youth in Assam. This 22-year-old resident of Sivasagar town in Assam wishes to make an impact in the lives of rural people, improve their livelihoods and uplift the rural economy. With these good intentions, he founded a food start up called 'Gaon ka Khaana' (GKK) where in he takes orders from the urban areas and delivers home made style ethnic food prepared by  woman from his village.  Hironmoy was struck with grief when he lost his mother at the age of 18. The following months he felt very lost, but it was also a time for introspection and he gave a lot of thought to the kind of bonding that exists between mothers and sons. Those days of grief made him feel his mother's presence in other woman and then on, he decided to treat other moms in his village as his own mother and work for their welfare. He promised that all women of Assam who were deprived of basic needs would be like his mother and he would work to empower them financially. Before launching his start up, Hironmoy had three major goals in mind – to sell authentic Assamese food, to popularise healthy food habits, and to help farmers by procuring raw materials from them. In June 2016, he started 'Gaon Ka Khaana' with four of his friends. Initially, he started from his own kitchen with a single stove. Today, its business has increased manifold and GKK is operating in four districts of Assam. It has an office with a kitchen in Sivasagar where 10 women work full time as cooks. Sometimes, when corporate clients place bulk orders, it outsources the orders to women living in rural areas. GKK has about 300 women working on an order-to-order basis. The women are provided with the raw materials and use their own kitchens to complete orders whenever they get one. GKK's popularity lies in its delivery of ethnic food which comprises 70 % of orders. The remaining 30% orders is pertaining to western cuisine to tend to the 18-25 age group. They get 100-150 home delivery orders in a day along with bulk orders. Another reason for its success is that the food is priced reasonably so that everyone can afford it.  GKK has two wings- GKK Naturals and GKK Mondita Snacks. GKK Naturals helps the rural farmers in a big way, as the team purchases vegetables directly from the farmers and sell them online. Even the vegetables and food products required to cater to the day to day orders are not bought from commercial markets, but are purchased from these poor farmers who are paid 30 % higher than what they would have earned from the local market. GKK Mondita Snacks is named after Hironmoy's mother and as a part of this wing, he encourages women to start self help groups to prepare eatables that will also help them to earn. From the birth of an idea to forming a start up, providing employment to the rural people, and empowering woman, Hironmoy has come a long way in life. He faced numerous problems and went through many struggles, but they were lessons learnt which helped him to grow further.  He feels that by helping the poor people who were deprived of even the basic necessities of life, he has made his mother proud. Rising from his own grief, he has given solace and livelihood to many people.