Qummy, foodtech: “Soon we’ll deliver to France”
Last week French Tech Moscow spoke with Evgeniy Pisarev, CEO of Qummy, a fast-growing Foodtech startup to share news about foodtech market and their last trip to Paris with Trianon Startups in June 2021
Evgeniy, to begin, some words about yourself and how you’ve created Qummy
I was working as a head of IT at Magnit before joining Qummy. I met my partners Artem Simonyantz and Alexey Kislun 2 years ago and 1,5 year ago we made our first sale. In fact, all of us are from very different from areas, but we found each other and made a very innovative product. Now we have 4 biggest clients in Russia from 5 top companies (RZD, Gazprom, Sberbank, Rosneft) and we’re represented in 9 big cities: Saint-Petersburg, Moscow, Krasnodar, Voronezh, Rostov on Don, Volgograd, Ekaterinburg, Tumen, Yakutsk.
Our company is based at Krasnodar and our production is based here too, so we deliver to other Russian cities from Krasnodar.
What technology Qummy is using?
Qummy is an IoT smart microwave oven that has the ability to get ready to eat frozen dishes that we make, using a special technology. Every dish has its unique QR code and the oven scans it. All our dishes are very tasty, we are winning competitions against great Cooks and the guests prefer Qummy. Now Qummy works with B2B market and we find our clients among dark stores, gas stations, trains & planes, and cafes, hotels and restaurants who have the opportunity to cook, but were having a cook is more expensive than to buy an oven “Qummy”
Dishes that are preparing on our production site are made without artificial colors, and are healthy to eat.
What are the main tendances in food tech today? Why would people buy Qummy instead of cooking by themselves?
The general tendance is that people want to be able to do more and more things within the day and don’t want to waste their time to prepare food. They want to eat healthy food that is easily available.
Slowly we’re moving towards B2C market. Today Qummy represents smart oven that can help to prepare tasty food, tomorrow this oven will become part of an ecosystem of the house that tracks your food behavior and doesn’t allow to eat “two brownies” instead of one per day.
Of course, Qummy will not replace completely the cook at a restaurant, and a culture of preparing food at home will remain, but Qummy will provide the additional help and be right by your side when you need it.
Are you thinking about the external markets? Was trip to France a part of it?
For now, we are focused on Russia, but slowly are getting ready for external markets such as the USA, Europe. Our trip to Paris was very rich in new connections and knowledges about the French market. Thanks to this trip with Trianon Startups we had the opportunity to negotiate with high — level companies such as Total, Auchan.
Qummy is a food tech startup, so before you buy it, you should try it. And unfortunately, we couldn’t bring the oven to Paris. So, we’re working on the project of getting certification of our production for the European market, then we’ll go with the real commercial proposal to our potential French clients.
What are your general impressions about this voyage to Paris?
I want to thank all participants of this trip for networking and great atmosphere. During these 3 days we were laughing, brainstorming together in a “startup” mode. Also, I will never forget our morning walks in the streets of Paris while the city was on lockdown and we had a permission to move due to work reasons. France is beautiful!
What are Qummy next steps in growing business?
We’re planning to create a new production site in Krasnodar before January 2022 and then we’ll return to our potential clients in France to say: “We’re ready to deliver”!