BENGALURU: Necessity is the mother of invention, they say, and this is exactly what some restaurants in the city are doing after the Karnataka Prevention of Slaughter and Preservation of Cattle bill came into effect as a law recently. According to this, only buffaloes above the age of 13 can be slaughtered, while the slaughter of cows, calves of cows, bulls and bullocks will be prohibited.
For Ashley D’Souza, the corporate chef at V&RO Hospitality, this would mean another hurdle to be crossed after the pandemic affecting the F&B industry. At Plan B, beef makes up to 40 per cent of the menu, with their burgers emerging a crowd favourite. “We used to sell at least 30-40 orders of this per day, followed by beef appetisers like the fiery beef, and beef chilli cheese fries, of which we used to sell minimum of 25-30 orders per day.
They have now become non-existent,” says D’Souza, who is now looking at offering other options like ground buffalo meat, soya and tofu.
“We are playing with different flavours and textures to replicate and serve our guests their favourites,” he adds.
Desmond Rice, founder of Tycoons, says the restaurant’s menu will soon indicate that beef dishes will now be served based on availability. “These dishes are quite popular with expats. We can’t fight the government on this. The menu has other items like lamb chops or steak, pork ribs, mince chicken, etc,” he says, adding that the price of beef has also been affected due to the law. “Because of the shortage, the price of buffalo meat has gone up.”
Naufal Verkumb, co-founder of Burger Seigneur, has noticed a similar trend, where the same quantity is now priced 25 per cent more than before. The burgers, however, are priced the same, leaving the restaurant to bear the brunt of additional costs. “More than this, we’re concerned about the authenticity of the dish we make. We pride ourselves on serving the authentic American beef burger, which, traditionally, uses cow meat. Now, we have no option but to use buffalo meat,” says Verkumb.
He goes on to explain that with burgers, diners are particular about the meat they choose. “Usually, a chicken eater will not try a lamb burger, and similarly, someone who likes lamb burgers will not want another variant. Beef burgers make up only 15 per cent of my sales per day, so more than those figures, it’s losing the authenticity of the dish that I’m worried about,” he says.
Verkumb also believes that the situation could go either way. “We may lose some customers or we may actually gain some as well. Those who wouldn’t come in because we served cow meat earlier may choose to dine here now. We’ll just have to wait and see.”