From hands to hardware: How Rotimatic is preserving a cultural tradition

The journey began in 2008 with a simple question that would eventually transform kitchens around the world: "Why can't making rotis be as easy as pushing a button?"

This question came from Pranoti Nagarkar, a mechanical engineer who had witnessed firsthand the labor-intensive process of roti-making. For countless Indian women living abroad, making fresh rotis daily represented both a connection to homeland and a time-consuming challenge. In diaspora communities, where maintaining cultural traditions while adapting to fast-paced foreign lifestyles creates unique pressures, the hours spent in the kitchen often came at the cost of career advancement, personal time, and family engagement.

Pranoti's vision wasn't just about convenience—it was about liberation. By 2010, she was joined by Rishi Israni, and together they founded Zimplistic, embarking on an eight-year journey to perfect what would become the world's first fully automated roti-making machine.

Transforming a time-honored culinary art into an automated process presented extraordinary challenges. Each roti requires precise measurements, perfect kneading, exact rolling, and careful cooking—variables that change with different flours, humidity levels, and desired textures. What makes our mother's or grandmother's rotis special is often described as the "touch" that comes from years of experience—an intangible quality seemingly impossible to replicate with technology.

For eight years, the team worked tirelessly, combining mechanical with software engineering to capture this elusive "touch." The result was a technological marvel featuring AI, IoT capabilities, 15 sensors, and 10 motors—all working in harmony to produce what many had considered impossible: machine-made rotis that could rival handmade ones in taste and texture.

By 2025, Rotimatic has found its way into over 100,000 homes across 58 countries, producing more than 250 million rotis. It has become an essential appliance in NRI kitchens with the average family making 35 rotis per week. But statistics tell only part of the story. The true impact can be measured in the transformed lives of those who use it—particularly NRI women.

For Meena Sharma, a software engineer in Toronto, Rotimatic meant no longer having to choose between career advancement and providing her children with the same fresh rotis her mother had made for her. "Before Rotimatic, I would wake up an hour earlier to prepare rotis for the day. Now that hour goes toward my professional development or simply resting," she explains.

In Sydney, Priya Patel describes how Rotimatic changed family dynamics: "My husband and teenage sons can now make rotis themselves. What was once seen as 'women's work' has become accessible to everyone in the family."

By making the preparation of traditional food more accessible, it has helped ensure that even the busiest households can maintain this aspect of cultural identity. "My daughters are growing up in America, thousands of miles from where I was raised," says Anjali Desai in Chicago. "But when they come home to the smell of fresh rotis made on our Rotimatic, they're experiencing something authentic that connects them to their roots."

These stories reflect a broader pattern. By automating one of the most difficult and time-consuming aspects of Indian cooking, Rotimatic has helped redistribute domestic responsibilities and challenged traditional gender roles within households.

After years of success and gathering customer feedback, the team wasn't content to rest on their achievements. The newly launched Rotimatic NEXT represents the culmination of continuous improvement—simpler, smarter, and more efficient than its predecessor.

Rotimatic NEXT isn't just an upgraded appliance—it's a cultural bridge. For diaspora communities balancing busy modern lives with traditional values, the enhanced capabilities mean even fewer compromises.  

As Rotimatic continues to evolve, it stands as a powerful example of how thoughtful technology can honor tradition while creating new possibilities for the future—one perfectly crafted flatbread at a time.