From using simple ingredients to creating recipes under a minute, Sanjyot Keer, founder of Your Food Lab, spoke to Brut about how he’s trying to revolutionise food content creation in India. #SmartMoves #Smartwater smartwater India
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00:00I share my recipes with the world. Back then, they called it a stupid idea.
00:03But today, I have more than 10 million followers on social media.
00:12Hi, Sanjot!
00:13Welcome to YFL.
00:14Welcome to the kitchen.
00:20Wow!
00:21Good?
00:22It's not spicy at all.
00:23It's very tasty.
00:25Tastes like the streets of Mumbai.
00:27Come on, what are you waiting for? Let's eat.
00:29Who were your inspirations while growing up?
00:31What's the favorite kind of food that you kind of loved as a child?
00:34My favorite food was always street food.
00:36So, street food, especially Mumbai street food, has inspired me a lot in my journey.
00:42My first ever recipe which I cooked was a pav bhaji.
00:45And that happened, you know, like as kids, we always look up to actors and actresses.
00:51And you get back home and you'll be like, I want to dress up like this particular actor.
00:54For me, it was, I watched a pav bhaji vendor making pav bhaji in the streets.
00:58And I came back home and told my mom, I want to make pav bhaji.
01:01How old were you?
01:02I must be like about 10-12 years old at that time.
01:05And I cooked my first pav bhaji and everybody loved it.
01:08And that is how I started cooking.
01:10You were telling me outside that in the first year of social media, you didn't earn anything.
01:14My question to you is that you took a very unconventional approach when you chose social media.
01:20Because a lot of celebs, they were choosing to do TV or, you know,
01:23become a manager at some restaurant.
01:25Why did you think that social media will be a fruitful option for you back in the day?
01:29So I did not become a content creator by choice.
01:32I was cooking professionally, worked on the sets of MasterChef as a food producer.
01:38And then I was going to go to London to study further.
01:41And right during that time, my family went through a very rough financial phase.
01:46And that's when I had to give up cooking and join my father to help him out.
01:50And while being there, I just thought that I was not cooking anymore.
01:54And I wanted to stay in touch with food.
01:56And that's how I started creating videos on weekends.
01:58And that's how I became a content creator.
02:00A lot of people thought that I'm stupid.
02:03But then I always believed that, you know, you should never kill your stupid ideas.
02:08I knew that if I was able to create a following,
02:11I would be able to create businesses around it one fine day.
02:14And now seven years down the line, now people think that it was a smart choice.
02:19It was not stupid.
02:20Food is a major content bucket on YouTube.
02:22How do you think you managed to break the clutter?
02:25There's been focus to two or three major points.
02:27One is I always saw that there are a lot of unfortunate people
02:31who cannot spend a lot of money on food.
02:33These people want to try out new recipes.
02:35So I started creating content, very basic ingredients,
02:38no equipment involved so that they could cook with whatever they have in their kitchen.
02:42Second, I wanted to change how food was presented on television.
02:45Because on television, to see a butter chicken recipe or a dal makhani recipe,
02:49you needed to spend like about half an hour.
02:52And now when you had your phone screen, you know,
02:55people had very shorter attention spans.
02:57So I started creating one minute food videos
03:00where the whole recipe could be actually cooked at home
03:02by just watching a one minute video.
03:04We are at YFL studio.
03:05So I'd love to get a glimpse into like what your studio is all about.
03:08Could we have a sneak peek?
03:09Sure, why not? Let's go.
03:12Could you tell us a little bit about the set, your equipment?
03:15This is not a set for the first thing.
03:18It's a practical, functional kitchen.
03:22And apart from the kitchen aspect,
03:24there's a lot of video production equipment what we have.
03:27Yeah, there's an outdoor space as well.
03:30We have a wood-fired oven.
03:31We have another pizza oven over there.
03:33So we do barbecue.
03:34You're talking about barbecue.
03:36I'm having water in my mouth right now.
03:38So are there days when you're like sick and tired?
03:40I don't want to cook.
03:42That doesn't happen.
03:43But then this happens that if I am doing one particular recipe
03:47and I wanted to get it really right,
03:49if I've cooked it for like about 20 times for just one video,
03:53me and my team will be like,
03:54we won't eat this thing for the next month.
03:56Now we've watched it a lot.
03:57Whenever I'm asked that, how do you unwind yourself?
04:00I say, I cook again.
04:02So without the cameras rolling,
04:03because cooking in front of the camera is very different.
04:06When I'm cooking for someone, when people can actually eat,
04:08it gives me a lot of happiness.
04:10It was that one person who probably like tasted your food,
04:12said that it's really good.
04:13And that was like a pat on your back.
04:15That now I've done a good job.
04:17Six years back, I met my now wife.
04:20So when we became friends, I always wanted to cook for her.
04:23The first time when I cooked for her, it was a nine course meal.
04:27Designed, you know, actually perfectly according to her liking.
04:30We started dating after that.
04:32So that was the pat on the back and we got married.
04:34What's your vision with your food labs?
04:36Where do you see it going in the next 10-15 years?
04:38So now with content itself, we are building IPs.
04:42Other than that, very excited to, you know, launch my D2C products.
04:46So building a D2C business right now,
04:48where you will be able to use YFL cookware, small appliances,
04:52everything to do with the kitchen in your home.
04:55But yeah, I want to create jobs.
04:57I want to, you know, build multiple businesses around the community I have built.
05:03Sanjod, thank you so much for speaking with us.
05:06Thank you so much for having me on Brood.