A retired squadron leader, a food truck, and hungry IIT-M students

How did a retired IAF squadron leader end up running a food truck at IIT Madras? Hemanth Sudev, an electronics engineer from Thiruvananthapuram, joined Tata Elxsi and worked for a year in 2010. An MTech dream took him to a coaching institute in Hyderabad, where he came across various options to write entrance exams including those for armed forces.
From his childhood he had heard stories of valour from a MIG 21 pilot who was his neighbour. He took the SSD exams and got selected as a short service commission (SSC) officer in 2011. He joined IAF’s helicopter stream at Leh, and later served in Ghaziabad, Delhi and Tambaram.
“I always loved good food and my days in IAF took me to different places. I spent my free time searching for good food and cafes. I also cooked for friends and others in the colony. I wrote food blogs and started a YouTube channel, ‘Hemanth’s Kitchen’, where I uploaded all my recipes,” says Hemanth, now CEO and founder, Flavourful Footwork Enterprises (OPC) Pvt Ltd. A week ago, he celebrated the first anniversary of his food truck on IIT-M campus.
But that happened by chance. Soon after retiring from IAF in 2021 as squadron leader, he wanted to start a restaurant. But his parents, retired govt servants, wanted him to take up a corporate job. He studied at IIM Lucknow and joined Amazon in Chennai as operations head in 2022. But his passion for food kept driving him and he quit a year later.

“I wanted to launch a fine dining restaurant in Chennai offering authentic food from regions across Kerala. An investor offered to back me. A chef and I went through all 14 districts in Kerala by road and, with help from foodies on Instagram, identified 3-4 food items from each.”
It took him a few months to finalise the theme and design the menu for his restaurant that needed an investment of 1.8 crore. By that time, his prospective investor had run into financial crunch and backed out. A bank came forward to offer him a personal loan of 30 lakh based on his credit rating and he set out to launch a small restaurant somewhere in Chennai.

That’s when a junior, who had worked with Hemanth wherever he was posted and was now pursuing an MTech at IIT-M, alerted him about a proposal by the student council for a food truck on campus, to serve students who study late into the night.
“A video call and further discussions later, I got the order to run the food truck. The designed menu comprised burgers, wrappers and sandwiches since they can’t have a full meal at those odd hours. Though it was junk food, I set out to make it as healthy as possible by procuring high quality ingredients. The fact that rent was low helped,” says Hemant. But there were costs elsewhere. IIT rules meant he couldn’t park overnight on campus. Towing a trailer in and out every day was expensive. He opted for a food truck built on a Mahendra Bolero with all equipment imported from Germany. All that cost him about 28 lakh.
“I set out SOPs (standard operating procedures) for every food product on the menu. Even a new cook can sustain the quality of food from day one. The operating time was fixed as 9pm to 6am, which prevented me from employing women from disadvantaged backgrounds, including acid attack victims and transgenders, an approach I adopted during my corporate tenure. Hence, I made some of them vendors for supplying groceries and other materials,” says Hemanth.
A year later, of an estimated 14,000-strong IIT-M community, including 20% day scholars, the food truck has a registered user base of 6,000. Prices of beverages start at 25; eatables start at 70 with the most premium burger priced at 130.
“The quality of food and the affordable pricing have helped me make a mark. Now I want to offer this food to outsiders at this affordable price through a 24×7 restaurant in the city. He is still deciding between T Nagar and Adyar, but he has fixed a date – Dec 25 this year. That will be followed by his originally planned fine dine restaurant. “I want to start that with my own money,” says Hemanth.