MANDIRA’S KITCHEN MEETS SURREY BUSINESS SCHOOL

Located at the Silent Pool in the Surrey Hills, award-winning Mandira’s Kitchen has created its own magic since being founded in 2019 by Mandira Sarkar. After 17 years as a management consultant, she saw an opportunity to realise her dream to share her passion for Indian premium cuisine. The Albury Estate agreed to refurbish a 400 year-old cow shed to set up a manufacturing food kitchen with an outlet for prepared meals delivered nationwide.

With the onset of Covid, Mandira pivoted the business away from catering and events to expand online which placed an increased importance on social media and the website to advertise its offering. However, like many SMEs, the company lacked the resources to develop its digital marketing sufficiently.

So Mandira’s Kitchen was delighted to participate in the Surrey Business School MSc Corporate Challenge last Spring.

Here, MSc student teams worked with local companies to evaluate current digital marketing activity and then identify challenges which they can manage for the businesses.

Mandira’s Kitchen supported two teams with one focused on social media and the other focused on website design / SEO. Initially, the teams evaluated the current context of the business including their digital marketing activity and then discussed findings with the company stakeholders.

Based on stakeholder feedback, the teams executed specific tasks. For social media, a team managed posting activity on Instagram and Facebook channels while increasing engagement. For the website, the other team redesigned the website and executed an e-commerce migration to a new hosting platform creating material cost savings.