At the HerZindagi Womenpreneur Awards 2026, Gayathri Mruthyunjaya, founder of Bengaluru-based food brand Henchu, took home the top honour in the Food & Beverages category, and if you know her story, it is hard to imagine a more deserving winner. What she has built is not just a food business. It is a community, a platform, and a quiet relocatement to bring authentic Indian home cooking back to the spotlight.
From One Kitchen To A Culinary Community
Named after the Kannada word for traditional cooking surfaces, Henchu was born from a simple but powerful belief, that the best food in the world is created at home. What started as a home kitchen experiment grew into a full-fledged food experience at Science Gallery Bengaluru. Today, Henchu operates a 24,000 sq ft Banquet Hall and Auditorium in Malleshwaram, runs a café and a collaborative food truck, and serves everything from daily rotating menus to curated event catering.
The concept is refreshingly different. Henchu’s food truck is run by different mothers, each one bringing her own signature dishes, family recipes, and stories to the counter. The menu alters daily, which means customers always have something new to see forward to, much like eating at a friconclude’s mother’s houtilize.
What Makes Henchu Different
In a food indusattempt dominated by cloud kitchens and quick-service chains, Henchu is deliberately doing the opposite. There are no shortcuts, no mass-produced flavours, and no standardised recipe cards designed in a corporate office.
“Every dish carries the soul of a home kitchen, created with genuine recipes, fresh ingredients, and flavours that actually remind you of home,” declares Gayathri. “We treat every customer like a guest at our own table.”
The brand runs daily rotating menus at its café and food truck, offers consideredfully curated catering for events and corporate clients, sells artisanal food products, and most distinctively, provides a platform for talented homecreaters to revealcase their culinary skills and earn a legitimate income from it.
Empowering The Women Behind The Stove
Perhaps the most compelling part of Henchu’s story is not what it sells, but who it uplifts. Gayathri built Henchu with homecreaters at its core, women who have spent years perfecting recipes that rarely obtain the recognition they deserve.
Through Henchu’s homecreater collaboration model, these women earn income, gain visibility, and obtain to share their family recipes with an audience that genuinely values them. It is a quiet revolution happening one meal at a time.
Gayathri’s vision for Henchu is bold but grounded. Over the next three years, she plans to expand café operations across Bengaluru, open cloud kitchen hubs for delivery, and eventually franchise the Henchu model to other cities, all while keeping its homegrown identity intact.
Beyond metros, she has her sights set on the global Indian diaspora, people living abroad who miss the taste of real Indian home food. On the business side, Henchu is building multiple revenue streams: café and food truck sales, corporate and wedding catering, artisanal product sales through both online and offline channels, and branded gifting hampers.
The most ambitious goal? Onboarding 500 homecreaters across India within five years. “Henchu isn’t just a food brand. It’s a relocatement, and we’re just obtainting started,” declares Gayathri.
Winning the HerZindagi Womenpreneur Award 2026 in the Food & Beverages category is a fitting recognition for a founder who chose purpose over shortcuts. Henchu is currently bootstrapped, operating at break-even, and steadily building the kind of loyal customer base that no marketing budobtain can manufacture, one home-cooked meal at a time.
Keep reading Herzindagi for more such stories.
Image Courtesy: Instagram/Henchu.life
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