Why It's all about Product in delivery business

Product plays a very important in any business and especially in the food business where people go to a restaurant or order from a restaurant or dark kitchen players online just for its food. It remains the base of any restaurant business.

Combining offline experience into the digital world

“My father is of the view that you should do only one product at a time. When you are doing kebab, do only kebabs and when you are doing biryani, focus on it only,” shared Ahsan Qureshi, Co-Founder, Cross Border Kitchens whose father Padma Shri Imtiyaz Qureshi was one of the first few chef to make Indian food famous globally. “He will be very excited in terms of spread of our kitchen. When he used to cater there was no online delivery, online marketing etc and he is very excited about the concept I am doing,” he said proudly.

Going forward people will also look at separate window for delivery and takeaway. And, restaurants will have to prepare a designated area and a staff member to handle these orders. Servers interacting with diners should also collect orders from the kitchen entrance itself.

“ Lite Bite Food was started with one outlet by selling subway sandwiches and it was the passion for food that company has grown to more than 200+ outlets today. It is the product that matters whether you are selling it online or offline. If you have the right product available, there is always a lot of a taker for that,” said Vineet Manocha, VP- Culinary, Lite Bite Foods that has done a lot of research on what food works well and what travels well. “We have modified our menu, modified some ingredients. And, a lot of research went into packaging because it is an important aspect when the food has to travel. We have taken a lot of time checking what is working, what is not working, how long does biryani last in a particular packet,” he added further.

Clubbing experience

There’s something that happens every couple of year and the sector, people have to come across it, bear the result. “When we opened a couple of years back in 2008, we had recession that happened. And, there is something around the corner. We are in the business where various things affect our business and that kind of teaches you to always be ready for a rainy day and hang in there. Having been running restaurant business for a while we wanted to diversify the business and also as delivery is becoming order of the day,” pointed Chiquita Gulati of Spice Market whose concpet Call Chotu is a modern Indian take whereas Nayi dilli k parathe is a take on parathe which is a must for all delhites.

Commenting on the same Anshul Khandelwal, Head of Marketing, Category and Revenue shared, “We always had inspiration to manufacture food rather than deliver food. The value is actually in creation and not in delivery of food in long term.” He also pointed that their heart was always about creating brand and not delivering food. It’s been only six months since they have really started their business. “We are doing around 40 kitchens in India in our 6 cities and one of which is the khichdi experiment which in just six month is one of the most loved concept,” he added by pointing that the reason they are doing is that India really needs a large national brand instead of big global QSRs. There is no Indian brand which is present pan-India across every city and has created a food revolution.

And, as we know that China eats 30-40 per cent of their meal outside home whereas in India it is less than 10 per cent. So, there is a huge opportunity to culturally shift this and also there is a need to have trust in ordering food from outside. “We intend to create large multi-crore pan Indian food brand,” concluded Khandelwal.