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Editor : S. Jafar Naqvi

Vol 17....... Issue 8 ...... August, 2020 D ue to the pandemic, Restaurant businesses have been running cold. Restaurants throughout the world are facing the toughest challenge of the century. The failing numbers of restaurants are a severe prompt of the deteriorating restaurant economy plagued by job losses and salary cuts. As a remedial solution, multiple foodrelated platforms has started offering rescue packages to help businesses as well as their staff; be it kitchen, service or housekeeping. Such as, National Restaurant Association of India (NRAI) has been actively working to safeguard the businesses with several measures. One of them, called Rise for Relief is a virtual cash program aimed at diners. One can buy virtual cash or vouchers of member restaurants worth Rs. 1000, valued at a marked-down rate of Rs. 750. The complete payment is divided into two parts — pay Rs. 250 now and Rs. 500 later while dining-in at the restaurant whose voucher is being purchased. Indian Flair Bartenders Association (IFBA) has also set up a donation drive for not just bartenders, but also hospitality staff in housekeeping, kitchen, administration and other departments vital to the hospitality industry. Likewise, World’s 50 Best Restaurants have launched a few fund raising initiatives under the 50 Best Recovery programme. One of them is an ongoing social media challenge #50BestRateMyPlate that ends on August 21. In a bid to support delivery staff, Swiggy too announced the Covid relief fund. Swiggy’s co-founder and CEO Sriharsha Majety have committed 50% of his annual salary towards this fund which aims to raise a corpus of Rs. 10 crore. However, with the coming festive season restaurants are attempting to stand out again. Innovation ought to be the driving force when creating a new restaurant or hotel concept. In celebration of India’s Independence Day, without rectifying a few settings that drive the restaurant industry will not rise correctly to the call of the pandemic. Times of crises, when most run afraid, are times when daring innovators find room to play, grow and make history. With the ups and downs in the current pandemic, gaining customers’ loyalty requires a clearly articulated and marketed character and personality. Every day, Covid is hastening the demise of restaurants run by operators who rushed to fill a niche and cash in on the success of others, choosing to copy rather than innovate and create something to inspire an untapped hunger in their customers. No one anticipated this pandemic, and, so, the fall of the industry has been sudden and catastrophic. For Indian hospitality to remain deliciously sustainable in the post-Covid era, one must tackle inequity and inequality in business practices. Integrity and intuition must work hand in hand with innovation and inspiration to prevent injustice from creeping into the work environments. Atithi devo bhava is the belief that when a guest arrives at doors, God arrives with them. The hospitality industry must strive to create that celestial abode for the customers by treating every human being who sits at table as a reflection of the divine. India must shine through her restaurants and hotels. As we rethink food service and the restaurants of tomorrow, let us shine light upon our nation’s deeply delicious, mindfully rich and highly localised culinary traditions.

Happy Independence Day!!!

Comments are welcome at: editorialmtpl@gmail.com Views expressed by individuals and contributors in the magazine are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of “AgriBusiness & Food Industry” editorial board. AgriBusiness & Food Industry does not accept any responsibility of any direct, indirect or consequential damage caused to any party due to views expressed by any one or more persons in the trade. All disputes are to be referred to Delhi Jurisdiction only. .....Editor

Restaurant & Food Industry Hit Hard

Food Safety and Hygiene Remain a Major Concern for People While Dining Out

The restaurant industry is probably to be the first industry to recover itself. Contactless dining & the concept of drive-through are gaining momentum, paper menus are getting replaced by digital and QR codes, according to food business honchos. The brunt on businesses has been enormous as the Covid-19 outbreak impacts various segments of the sector.

In the restaurant industry alone, 40% of businesses had shut in March which might not ever open again. Conversely, as India moves through Unlock 2.0, technology only can help businesses not just to recover from the impact but also to grow. There is an insistent need to help retailers better understand the role of technology in reviving business post-lockdown, rebuilding consumer confidence, and innovating for the consumer.

A recent webinar hosted by Retailers Association of India, titled ‘Retail Technology and the Big Reset’, powered by foodtech company Dineout, also aimed at equipping retailers with some ground-breaking technologies that could

Ankit Mehrotra

Co-Founder & CEO, Dineout benefit businesses. “The food industry was operational even during the world wars. Never has the industry been shut like this,” said Ankit Mehrotra, Co-Founder & CEO, Dineout.

“The shock of the pandemic has worn off, businesses, as well as people. Everyone is preparing to come out of the impact right now. Restaurants or retail businesses need to learn to get the two together—getting people to go out and at the same time ensuring social distancing norms are followed. Alongside, technology is going to play

The food industry was operational even during the world wars. Never has the industry been shut like this. The shock of the pandemic has worn off, businesses, as well as people

a very important role in this entire process across all industries,” added Mehrotra.

Kiran Komatla, SVP - IT, Burger King India Pvt. Ltd. said, “Technology needs to be smarter, interactive and needs to understand customers’ behaviour better to be able to make better suggestions. This is a wave, which will just keep moving forward.”

Trends to Rule Post Covid

Food safety and hygiene remain a concern for people and it will be a major concern going forward when they will be dining out. Covid-19 has changed how Indian’s have been dining for ages. Nowadays, people are looking at more convenient, healthy and safe food. They are also looking at how the food is being packed, what’s the source, how is it travelling all the way when ordered online looking at the hygiene standards. DIY Kits: DIY kits have also become the new cool these days as many restaurants

have started this concept where they let people do the assembling, preparing and cooking, using all the fresh ingredients which are provided by them. “It’s simply a substitute to dining out and a good family activity. And then a happy meal equals to happy family,” shared Saurabh Khanijo, Owner and MD, Kylin who has launched his DIY range of sauces during the pandemic.

Safety & Hygiene: Food safety and hygiene is the most important focus for any establishment currently both for delivery and backend operations at the kitchen. “Every customer is concerned about hygiene & safety. Celebrities, regular guests, bureaucrats, corporate clients, families and everyone are currently ordering through us and we need to serve them appropriately,” added Vishal Jindal, Co-Founder, Biryani by Kilo.

Fitness/ Healthy Food:

Healthy food categories are picking steam with Covid-19 spreading across the globe. People are looking at healthier eating options when dining or ordering food at home.

Good Packing Standards:

Packaging is the key part of any delivery industry. Food should be packed with flavours intact and spill proof. The client should experience convenient and comfort packaging so that he can consume the food easily without any hassle. “We are trying to adapt the eco-friendly packaging. In a rapidly changing and challenging environment, we want to deliver hygienically approved packaging so that customer feels safe and ensured,” shared Anshu Raj, Founder, Caterspoint. “Also the packaging should contain basic information that will let the client know about the brand and the product,” he added.

Contactless Dining/ Delivery:

There’s no denying that contactless dining will be the future of restaurant business. With the unlock, restaurants are resuming their dinein service by employing contactless dine-in processes, wherein right from accessing the menu via QR codes placed on the table to making payments, the entire process is made digital. With contactless services in place, restaurants have upgraded their digital assets including the website, m-site and mobile app for a faster, easier and more seamless experience.

“Post unlock, more people are moving out of their homes for work and they need access to safe and hygienic food. Our contactless services ensure trust, safety and hygiene in every bite of the meal. We have been responsive to customer needs in the new normal by offering value deals and innovative contactless experiences across platforms while ensuring that our team members and guests feel safe, valued, and cared for,” pointed Neha, Marketing Director, Pizza Hut India.

A Bleak Future

The restaurant industry has entered its fifth month of lockdown. Millions of entrepreneurs are left with nothing but debt, outstanding bills and a future which holds no sureness on business going forward. Restaurant owners feel it’s not going to be business as usual once the lockdown is lifted. Reopening is going to be an expensive affair with additional expenses to comply with the Standard Operating Procedure (SOP). Amid this condition, restaurants look at a bleak future. Also, it’s dodgy that vendors will supply essentials to restaurants on credit anymore. Restaurant owners remain in doubt about whether they will be able to generate even half of the kind of revenue which they did in pre-Covid times.

Jaydeep Mukherjee, Brand Head at Smoke House Deli told that there will be an huge amount of investment that will have to be made just to follow the basic mandate. "We will have to place acrylic sheets between tables, complete exhaust system, air filters will have to be installed and the list goes on and on." Mukherjee adds that maintaining social-distancing norms at restaurants would mean losing 50% of the customers; hence revenues will take a hit as well. All these measures make the situation dismal and terrible for restaurant owners forcing them to shut shops.

According to Mukherjee, innovations like DIY food kits have helped home delivery sales but that won’t be sustainable to run the business and cover costs for too long. The industry is staring at a 40- 50% decline in its revenue. It’s because of this financial stress that the National Restaurants Association of India (NRAI) expects over one-third of restaurants to not survive the ongoing lockdown.

Anurag Katriyar, President at NRAI said that we are looking at failure rate of 30-40% -- restaurants never opening up again. The damage doesn’t end here as with every passing month of lockdown another 5%

of restaurants will bite the dust. The restaurant industry provides direct employment to millions of Indians and a scenario where over onethird of the restaurants face survival crisis would mean nothing less than a disaster for the job market in this industry. Katriyar adds that the F&B sector is the largest employer of human capital after agriculture, providing direct employment to 7.3 million people and 30-40% restaurants shutting down would mean 3-3.5 million jobs being lost. To offset some damage, NRAI has been seeking some relaxation for the industry such as allowing restaurants to claim Input Tax Credit on GST and extending the business licences of restaurants till the end of current financial year.

Home Delivery of Food

In the wake of the pandemic, Indian Hotels Company Ltd. started home delivery of dishes from its restaurants of Taj and Vivanta in Kolkata. In the first phase, guests can order from four iconic restaurants namely the Chinoiserie, Sonargaon and Cal27 from Taj Bengal, Kolkata and Mynt from Vivanta Kolkata EM Bypass.

A Qmin mobile application will also be launched followed by a Technology needs to be smarter, interactive and needs to understand customers’ behaviour better to be able to make better suggestions. This is a wave, which will just keep moving forward

Kiran Komatla

SVP - IT, Burger King India Pvt. Ltd.

gourmet Qmin Shop in subsequent months to pick up the business. "IHCL's landmark hotels in Kolkata have pioneered various cuisines and culinary innovations for over three decades and it is our privilege to bring that experience from our signature restaurants to our guests in the comfort of their homes," said Manish Gupta, Area Director - East.

Food Trucks

Now that people are cautious about going out for lunch or dinner, many restaurants are coming to them—in food trucks. From Kylin and Mainland China to Domino’s Pizza, many restaurant chains are taking food trucks – where consumers can see chefs preparing foods in a safe and hygienic manner, wearing masks and face-shields – to housing societies across cities at a time.

“We are saying, rather than I coming to your doorstep and delivering, you come to my doorstep, that too in the same society,” said Khanijo, who has his food trucks criss-crossing various societies in Delhi NCR. Domino’s Pizza, which used to send food trucks to parties, marriages and festivals including Durga Puja before the pandemic, now is sending them into the gated communities and societies in Gurgaon, Noida and Bengaluru.

“At the end of the day, everything is becoming contactless,” said Anjan Chatterjee, Managing Director of Speciality Restaurants that operates Mainland China chain. Speciality is planning to operate food-trucks in Delhi and is in the process of procuring permissions for such operations in Mumbai, Kolkata and Bengaluru. Restaurants in The Lalit hotels in various places are shut, but they have placed food trucks at the porches of the five-star chain’s properties in New Delhi, Mumbai and Bengaluru, where consumers can pick up various food items, including churros, tacos, burgers and pizza slices among others that are ordered online.

“In this market even if I am doing 50% of the business, I am fine,” said Khanijo. He said he is happy that the concept is relatively getting better acceptance from consumers. “People are welcoming us as they were sick and tired of cooking at home,” he said. “So slowly and steadily it is picking up.” Kylin used to operate food trucks in gated communities even prior to the Covid-19 outbreak when each of its Wanchai by Kylin food trucks generated sales of about Rs 40,000 per day. “Now many societies in Noida and Gurgaon have started giving

us permissions to operate again,” Khanijo said.

Reinvented and Innovated

"One cannot think well, love well, sleep well, if one has not dined well," wrote Virginia Woolf in another time and another context. Decades later, as COVID-19 continues its spread, the words echo the wistful longing of those itching to get back to one aspect of normalcy -- a nice restaurant, convivial company and great food. That vision of 'dining out' had receded into the past for many of India's urban elite, but it's time finally to press the reset button as the industry gets into high gear to welcome back diners after lockdown.

As the country grapples with the crisis, the F&B industry is reinventing itself in keeping with the times. In a slow, incremental process of pulling themselves out of a slump, several businesses have started with online deliveries and many are also trying to reestablish diningin with the help of digital solutions. Social distancing, open kitchens, meticulous sanitising, minimal contact with restaurant staff and digital menus are some steps being taken to infuse confidence.

Umesh Trivedi, Shift Manager at Blue Tokai, told that digital solutions have been implemented ever since the store opened for dining-in in June. "Although we have hardly received any crowds at the cafe since we opened, the QR codes are a better option just in case there is a queue. The customers can check the menu, order from their seats by scanning the code," Trivedi said.

While Blue Tokai's digital menu is an in-house solution, new tech entrants such as My Menu and Fastor that offer their clients the knowhow of contactless, self-ordering QR codes are also gaining pace in the Indian service market. The owners believe adapting to change is the only way to sustain business in the current scenario. By scanning a computer-generated code on each table, a customer is directed to a digital menu on his smartphone. The menu allows them to order from the comfort of their seats and even checkout after the meal, leading to minimum interaction with the restaurant staff. "Restaurateurs are already adapting to the new normal as they want their businesses to recoup whereas consumers are eager to venture out and dine safely. We are getting requests from not just fivestars but from mid-level restaurants too as they want to opt for solutions that will encourage the consumer to dine at their place," Neeren Tiwari, Country Head of My Menu India.

My Menu, which launched in India in March, has worked with 600 restaurants, including Taj Hotels, Radisson, Novotel, Ibis, Mercure, Shiro, and Biryani Batuta. Fastor, another tech start-up, is offering similar services. "When people come to know that a certain restaurant is taking care of minimum touch points and giving the same service then they will want to come and eat. So self checkout platforms like Fastor are the need of the hour for the hospitality industry," said Karan Sood, Co-Founder, Fastor.

The other strategy is for food outlets to reinforce online delivery systems and expand business with cloud kitchens instead of dining outlets. In a cloud kitchen model, a business only offers online delivery of food,

restricting staff and customer interaction to the minimum.

After venturing into the Indian F&B industry in 2017 and with five outlets in Delhi and Gurgaon, Malaysian Quick-Service Restaurant (QSR) brand Momo King has decided to expand into cloud kitchens in the current situation. "Due to minimal physical interaction of the consumers with the outside world, the F&B industry is currently observing a surge in online orders. This has further inspired us to initiate cloud kitchens and cater to the patrons with our deliveryonly model," said Shyam Narayan Thakur, Momo King Founder. The food chain has opened five cloud kitchens in Delhi-NCR and plans to expand to 20-25 such kitchens by the year-end. "The idea behind these kitchens is to eliminate the traditional dine-in experience and focus exclusively on online food deliveries as it would help us in minimising personal interaction between the staff and the customers," Thakur added.

Harjas, owner of Capri

Wings that dishes out Italian food, said the pandemic has hit the hospitality industry the worst with sales down to "20-30% of the pre-covid numbers". Harjas said they have been providing in house accommodation to the chefs in their Noida kitchen "to absolutely reduce contact with outside personnel". "Since we are a delivery only kitchen, and no dine-in is offered currently, we are working on safety and hygiene aspects of our kitchen and employees," he added.

“We have to start from scratch — be it hiring staff or ordering fresh produce,” said Amrut Mehta, Director, Little Italy group of restaurants. During the first phase of the lockdown, Little Italy offered DIY kits that enabled customers to cook its Italian specials at home. The trend was such a hit that the chain was encouraged to start Acasa, a gourmet grocery delivery service of ingredients used in their restaurants. “The first lockdown forced people to cook and we decided to deliver fresh, high-quality produce and gourmet products like premium pastas,” added Mehta.

Akanksha Chaudhury, Assistant Director (Sales And Marketing), JSM Corporation which owns restaurants Shiro and Hard Rock Cafe said, “During the unlock phase, we opened our restaurants only in Bengaluru because it seemed to be the safest city. But now, it seems so dicey, so our focus is on deliveries. We plan to expand our network of dark kitchens.”

Beverage outlet Chaayos is also innovating by creating teas catering to moment. “Safety, immunity and health are keywords. We’re creating immunity-boosting beverages like turmeric milk, turmeric tea and cardamom green tea. These are available on e-commerce platforms,” said Co-Founder, Raghav Verma.

Rise Above

It’s never been easy to make money in the restaurant industry. So when a crisis of the magnitude of the Covid-19 global pandemic forces restaurants to close, and their revenue drops to zero overnight, things get particularly dire. Rebuilding that confidence and trust needs to begin with empathy and respect for restaurant employees who will be a new contingent of frontline workers in the fight against Covid-19 as well as the culture carriers and custodians of the restaurant experience.

The most important thing we are all facing is really the confidence and comfort that guests are going to have when they come back to the restaurants. That’s going to be the biggest hurdle, regardless of the guidelines that the government is giving. Until people get comfortable with that, nothing’s going to happen.

Way Forward

l Barcodes and QR codes for purchases in physical stores. l Scaling down the number of items on menu. l Doubled delivery radiuses. l Contactless dining. l Drive-through concept. l Capacity management. l Safety and hygiene. l Ticket size deliveries by QSR. l The preferred online channel. l Availability of inventory.

Advice for Retailers

l Adopt digital real-time connections to drive better customer experience. l Become digitally savvy with communication and payments. l Focus on inventory accuracy; it is of utmost importance to brave through this pandemic. l Place QR Codes/barcodes across at various strategic and vantage points. l Use suggestive selling as it is going to drive more digital sales. l Communicate to employees and customers that you care for them. l Create SOPs and communicate them through digital channels.