No matter if you think of dishes like butter chicken, chana masala or fish curry, Indian cuisine comes with colorful spices and mouthwatering aromas. While recipes and cooking traditions vary greatly across India, most of the dishes have one thing in common: They are often prepared on gas cooktops. Our Indian colleagues came up with some innovative features for their new tabletop cooker solution, addressing two unmet consumer needs and thus entering the local mass-market segment. Click here to learn more about the local innovation!

While recipes and cooking traditions vary greatly across India, the importance of food and home cooking is unwaveringly high. For preparing these meals, many Indian families are using gas cooktops today, especially tabletop solutions. Until now, cleaning spillages and crumbs from the kitchen countertop underneath the cooker was quite complicated, because consumers had to lift the heavy appliance with one hand while cleaning with the other. Another gap: exiting tabletop cookers in the Indian market did not support cooking with large pots or simultaneous cooking of multiple dishes due to the lack of space and burner sizes. “When we learned about these unmet consumer needs during our extensive consumer studies, it became our target to meet them! That’s why we developed a new tabletop solution for our Bosch appliance brand”, underlines Product Owner Chamundeeswaran Radhakrishnan. 

“Even though, there are many comparable tabletop cooktops in the Indian market already, none of them addresses the convenience of cleaning”, says Chamu. 

Addressing actual consumer issues

For this reason, the local project team primarily focused on providing easier cleaning options. They also integrated several new features into Bosch’s new tabletop cooker, allowing for faster cooking and seamless assimilation into daily kitchen routines: After testing several different options to lift the cooker for simpler cleaning, they decided for so-called “tilt-stay-tilt legs. “Consumers can lift the front legs effortlessly and safely up to 30 degrees, arrest the legs in this position, and then easily clean the counter underneath the appliance with both hands”, explains Chamu.

What’s more: they don’t need to worry about falling burner caps or pan supports thanks to unobtrusive interlocks that prevent them from falling. To enable cooking larger quantities of food for family meals, the developers not only integrated more powerful burners, but they also added a larger third burner, and increased the space between them. 

Challenges to overcome

After the concept was completed and the first consumer tests proofed to be successful, the team faced another challenge: The product had to comply with the local regulatory requirements and thus get a so-called “ISI certification” – a standards-compliance mark for industrial products in India since that was introduced 1955. At the same time, the team made sure, that the tabletop cooker complies with BSH’s own high quality and safety standards and most of the European regulations. “We also worked closely with our Spanish colleagues from BSH’s Global Gas Competency Center (GCC) in Santander to increase our gas competency and to perfect all technical aspects of the new cooker”, explains Chamu. Furthermore, the team had to handle most of the critical project steps virtually due to the lockdown in India during the pandemic. Accessing suppliers and material, and carrying out product tests were quite a big challenge according to Chamu. That is why he and his team are especially proud of completing the innovation project in a timely manner and launching Bosch’s new tabletop gas cooker in the beginning of July. “We are already thinking about further product enhancements to meet even more local needs. So stay tuned and you’ll soon hear more innovation news from BSH India”, summarizes Chamu.