Now, Tiffins for the pets, yes !

By India Input desk

Founded and run by a Power engineer, who is ranked among India’s top hundred women start-up entrepreneurs, the start-up is probably the most talked about topic among the pet lovers in central India today.

At home and at work outside, we humans yearn for ‘freshly cooked and served hot’ meals. Hot, nutritional, delicious and yummy meals. However, when it’s not possible to cook these for themselves, tiffins are subscribed by the humans. But, what about pets? Aren’t they part of our world, part of the family? Don’t they too, deserve interesting, freshly made tiffins ? Don’t they too need a cloud kitchen?

Yes and the solution is named ‘Dobby-The-Chef’

So, who is ‘Dobby-the-Chef’?

‘DobbyTheChef’ promoted by Dhanashree Rambole Ambaselkar is a subscription  based dog food service which delivers fresh (moist), healthy and balanced dog food, dog cakes, cookies. The food is formulated by expert veterinary nutritionists and takes care of all the macro and micro nutrients every dog requires at its life-stage and ideal weight. The IIM Nagpur incubated start-up launched its fresh dog food subscription service in Nagpur in September 2018. Besides fresh dog food, Dobby-The-Chef also delivers freshly baked dog birthday cakes and cookies. And veg food cakes for vegetarian pets. The ‘fresh meal for pets’ trend is fast catching up and is finally here to stay.

For a glimpse, here are some testimonials.

Tiffins, trust and Testimonials

Ms. Minal Choudhary has to say this about her pet Simba, who was a fussy eater before. She says,-‘Now we don’t have a problem getting him to eat. He is very content. And yes, it is a relief.’

Mr. Saksham Khetan’s feedback reads,

‘Yes, my doggo is happy and  I’m relaxed now. As my family is pure vegetarian family I wasn’t able to give my dog proper non veg food and had to feed him veg food which he doesn’t like to eat much but ordering Dobby the Chef’s meal I can give him both veg and non veg diet properly and he enjoys the food. I get time to time delivery. And as a CA student, I can spend more time on studies as I don’t have to worry much about his food.

Ms. Sei Deshpande says,

‘Laila had lost a lot of weight and her nutritional balance had taken a hit after she had delivered a litter of seven pups.

I started feeding her the fresh food from Dobby the chef and viola! Not only has she gained her weight back, her bone and teeth health has improved and she doesn’t shed as many hair as before. I don’t think I will ever switch back to conventional dog-food or even ghar-ki-roti.

It’s as good as home-cooked plus convenient.’

Ms. Vijaya Waindeskar has two dogs at home. She shares, -‘Creamie was a fat dog and she was lazy. But, soon after we started feeding her the fresh food from Dobby the chef, she had an instant boost in her body, she lost some weight and became very active. Mac has gained weight and is in a very good condition , thanks to this nutritional food.

Ms. Medha Dixit says :

“Our almost 2 yr old, GSD, Robin is an absolute fan of Dobby’s chicken meal. He has been having it since he was 6 months old. He gobbles it up  in 10 seconds flat. I am just glad that it is very convenient for me and extremely nutritious for him. Thank you Dhanashree and DobbyTheChef. “

 Ms. Revati Mulmulay admires the food selection and has this to say,–

 ‘Love what you are doing –  Dobby the chef team have great selection of quality dog/cat food,treats, cookies and cakes. Most important factor is that everything is home cooked which is healthy and hygienic for our pets. The founder is extremely knowledgeable and friendly. She has a lot of great advice to offer for our pets. Wonderful customer service!’

About the start-up and it’s founder

Dhanashree Ambaselkar has graduation in Engineering, specializing in Power from National Power Training Institute after which she pursued Finance for two years under CRISIL Certified Financial Analyst Programme and worked in the energy sector for eight years. Today she powers her successful start-up ‘Dobby-the-Chef’ which is among the top hundred start-ups from all over India, incubated by IIM Bangalore’s incubator NSRCEL, with IIM Nagpur under its Women Start-up Programme 2018.

It is important to note that, the Women Start-up programme, an initiative by NS Raghavan Center for Entrepreneurial Learning selected the top 100 women from all over India after screening 12000+  business model applications and pitches.

indiainput.com asked Dhanashree how it all began for the power engineer who loves pets..

Her reply, in her words, -‘Yes, as a dog and a pet lover since childhood, I always wanted to do something for the pets’ health who are considered no less than a family member. NSRCEL appreciated my idea of providing fresh food to pets and included my start-up to incubate. The idea was also appreciated at Startup India-Maharashtra Yatra, 2018 where my brand ‘DobbyTheChef’ was a finalist. Thus began my full time journey of creating the brand  with a vision to transform our cities into pet-friendly cities.  Our passion for the pets once again got recognised when it got incubated at IIM Nagpur under MSME’s scheme “Ideas for New India Challenge 2020”.

And what’s next..

Dhanashree is already contemplating on some areas for improvements, like increasing the shelf life of fresh dog food without preservatives. And adding prescriptions diets for pets.

Dobby also means fun

Nagpur (Maharashtra, India) based ‘Dobby the Chef’ also hosted first of its kind dog pool party event in the city in October 2018 which turned out to be a hit. Second dog pool party was held on 14th feb 2021. The third dog pool party is scheduled on 14 feb 2022.

Says a visibly satisfied and proud Dhanashree, -‘We also aim to help the dog parents socialize in various ways thereby creating a healthy atmosphere to have fun with their four-legged friends. DobbyTheChef has also co-organised vaccination drives, stray feeding drives and virtual adoption drives before, as part of its social responsibility.’

[Pics courtesy : ‘Dobby-the-Chef]