From beer cupcakes to Mexican quesadilla, it’s a whole range of exotic and traditional delicacies dished out by food bloggers in the virtual kitchen space. Eagerly lapped by gourmets and gourmands world over, a large section of bloggers is now looking to capitalise on their blogs by becoming more involved in the food world professionally.
When Saee Koranne-Khandekar started her blog myjhola.in in 2008, she had little inkling that her hobby would turn into a full-time career option two years later. “Blogging opened up several avenues for me,” says Khandekar, who quit her job in a firm that dealt with editing and instructional design. She now develops recipes, writes articles, and acts as a food consultant for Gourmet Company, an online gourmet food store, based in India. Khandekar is also working as F&B (food and beverage) advisor for Tea Trails, an upcoming premium tea room.
Her blog has 2,000 followers. Her obsession of running the blog provided a platform to connect with hotels, restaurants, chefs, food magazines and like-minded bloggers across the globe. But how do food bloggers monetise this space? Apart from Google Adsense, Khandekar says the blog is an individual’s portfolio, which leads to other opportunities. She regularly conducts cooking classes and also writes a food column for a newspaper. “I am earning much more now than what I did in my former instructional design firm,” Khandekar says.
Like Khandekar, many others have shunned their traditional jobs in fields such as engineering and accountancy to explore a different journey in the world of food blogging.
Nikhil Merchant’s blog nonchalantgourmand.com came into being when his photographer friend urged him to write about his experiences in cooking, given his penchant to explore different cuisines.
His love for food and passion for writing is reflected in every story that he narrates in his blog posts.
Merchant was a business developer in an export import firm for about eight years before he took to food blogging. Given the popularity of the blog, Merchant found more work opportunities in the food world. His expertise and penchant finally landed him a job as a product manager for Shop for Change, an organisation that markets products of farmers in India. “When I started the blog in 2008, I did not intend to monetise the space. But a couple of months later, I realised its potential,” Merchant said. His blog today has about 4,000 subscribers and gets about 3,000 new visits every day.
Stay-at-home-blogging
Sharmilee Jayaprakash’s life took a dramatic turn with the birth of her child. She quit her full-time job in a software firm and started her food blog sharmispassions.com as a hobby.
“So now, no more deadlines set by others. I thoroughly enjoy the work I do,” says Jayaprakash. Revenue generation is mainly through Google Adsense and Yahoo. Her blog started generating just $5 a month when she first monetised the site two years ago, but now, Jayaprakash says it is steadily increasing. deepa.nair@thehindu.co.in