While hotels and restaurants are making headway with sales and footfalls by offering home delivery, staycation, festive and year end discounts, the world of corporate catering is yet to experience this kind of luck. Mainly because most companies remain shut as work from home continues being the norm.
Sanjay Kumar, CEO, Elior India, one of the largest catering companies in India, says, “The impact of COVID-19 is more pronounced in Delhi-NCR. Less than 10 per cent of our customers are eating food in offices because many are working from home. Particularly in NCR, at least six-seven central kitchens are up for grabs. A lot of people lost their jobs as many businesses folded up. This has set the industry back by six-seven years.”
The footfall of customers for Feastly by Feeding Billions – operational in six cities – has also come down to just 20-30 per cent of what it was in Delhi. The company has now opted for biodegradable boxes like bagasse boxes and options in bamboo to decrease the waste burden. “The food hygiene levels have rocketed. The buffet system is totally out. At Samsung, for instance, the meal boxes are sanitised and there are fixed timings for people to enter the cafeteria in small groups,” adds Sarthak Gahlaut, Founder of Feastly.
Having a central kitchen with a capacity to prepare 25,000-30,000 meals per shift, Feastly caters to two markets – industry and corporate. “Seventy per cent of the corporate market has vanished. We hope when they are back, it will push us to work more,” says Gahlaut, who plans to expand in 15 cities by 2021.But Kumar feels that if and when companies resume physical operations, it will be slow and cautious. “We think somewhere in July, companies in major cities will muster the courage to ask people to come to work, but only if the vaccine is available and being administered.”
Tailor-made & safe
Meanwhile, Feastly has seen a huge spike in demand for healthy meals. “During COVID, everyone realised that ‘we are what we eat’. We now have requests to add ample salad options in the menu,” adds Gahlaut.
Experts foresee more rigorous audits to ensure compliance of safety procedures. “Larger companies will see growth, but the smaller ones will find it difficult to justify making these investments given the low prices NCR offers,” says Kumar, who adds that when the demand picks up, more organisations will focus more on serving safe food that tasty food. “This will also become a reason for the smaller caterers to fold up because not more than two kitchens in Delhi have the infrastructure and clean water to produce safe food,” adds Kumar.
Incorporating AI
Gahlaut predicts Artificial Intelligence will become the backbone of the food industry. “AI will help us know whether the company we are catering to is liking our food. We are in the pipeline to launch our tech product in 2021 that will tackle the three issues in the food industry – food traceability (What’s in your food), food quality (calories, nutritional content) and food safety.”Elior India’s own digital platform enables social distancing, by pre-assigning seats in a cafeteria, and getting real-time feedback from the customer on the quality of food.
Embassy Catering is set to venture into corporate catering in 2021 as Owner Pranay Bahl feels it is a good time to venture out. “Though we will get fewer clients, we will get a chance to provide a seamless delivery in terms of operations. Quality will play a major role now.” Also predicted is a fairly large shift in the selection criteria, he says, wherein the first element will be hygiene. “Here lies the opportunity for large F&B companies like us. We have this infrastructure because of the multiple formats we operate in. Our office is now at Udyog Vihar, so we will be able to cash in on the large number of companies there,” adds Bahl, who counts Teleperformance and Taj Sats as clients.
Embassy’s variety of cuisines on offer like Thai, Japanese, Korean or European, makes it stand out among competitors, feels Bahl. “Many offices we have spoken to are waiting to have a larger workforce come in to work. As the numbers grow, by February-March, we will come into play.”