Kolkata: Meet captures the various challenges facing the F&B industry

Dr S Radhakrishnan, President, TiE Kolkata, inaugurated the event. Beginning on a light note, describing how food can calm down most restless people, he touched upon the main activities of TiE Global and TiE Kolkata, the importance of the Indian food and beverage (F&B) industry and what needs to be done to make it more relevant.

Among the series of panel discussions, the one titled 'Local Going Places' -- moderated by Aninda Palit -- co-founder of 6 Ballygunge Place, brought to light the various challenges that F&B entrepreneurs face when a local brand decides to expand.

Niche restaurants, such as those catering regional cuisine feel the heat the most.

Siddharta Chatterjee, co-founder of Bhojohori Manna, a restaurant specialising in Bengali cuisine, said that not only procuring raw material but also hiring skilled staff can be a challenge sometimes.

Rakhi Purnima DasGupta, started Kewpies to bridge the gap between eating Bengali food in a five star restaurant and at an eatery run by a woman's welfare group. Today, it is one of the most sought after restaurants in Kolkata.

She said that even though she received many offers to expand to other cities, she chose not to because she personally supervises the cooking.

Anuvrat Pabrai, founder of Pabrai's Fresh and Natural Ice Creams said introducing Bengal's 'nolen gur' flavour was a challenge that ultimately changed to success. "We have received business proposals from several countries but we are more keen to fine tune our franchise model before we venture out," he said.

Chai Break owner Aditya Ladsaria said that they were eager to expand to places such as Durgapur and Burdwan because they thought competition would be less. "But we realised the challenges once we set up our restaurant. Getting skilled staff was a key concern," he said.

"Expanding to other cities or towns also means adjusting to new places, new people and new culture," said Ladsaria.

His views were partly reiterated by Siddharta Chatterjee when he said that since people's culinary preference varies across India, sometimes it can be difficult carrying one region's food to another.

"Say, people in Bengaluru may want more chillies in the Bengali mutton curry," said Chatterjee.

He also pointed out that for the F&B industry to expand, it is necessary to consolidate the compliance required to open and run a restaurant.

The only person who seemed least perturbed was Chef Joymalya Banerjee, founder of Bohemian. "I am a chef by passion. To me cooking is like painting," he said.

With the GST regime expected to roll out from July 1, everyone connected to the F&B industry, be they entrepreneurs or providers of related services, seemed concerned about the accounting system.

Therefore, TiE had arranged for a special session where TB Chatterjee, GST consultant, explained the basics of GST and illustrated how the various categories of hotels and restaurants will be affected, how they will have to adopt and adapt to GST rules, etc.

British Deputy High Commissioner, Bruce Buckneil, spoke briefly about the F&B industry in the UK and investing in the UK.

He followed it up with a few short films, including one on the diversity of food in the UK and clips showing how four young entrepreneurs have been doing very well in the country.

He said that visa for the right people is never a matter of concern.

Chef Sabyasachi Gorai of Fabrica & Lavaash by Saby fame and Bikram Dasgupta, Director, BDG Global, were the keynote speakers.

As things were getting a little serious, the organisers decided to call on stage the representatives of the Pepsico India for the launch of the new zero-calorie, no-sugar Pepsi Black, and soon one could hear cans popping in the various corners of the room -- all the hard talk of the evening had made everyone thirsty indeed.

The mood lightened further as Sagar Daryani, co-founder and CEO of WoW!Momo took the stage for moderating the session on 'Innovating for Growth.

Daryani, a TiE Kolkata Charter Member, was also Convener of the F&B Summit.

Participants included Nandan Reddy of Swiggy, Abhinay Choudhuri of Big Basket, Sneha Singhi of Paris Cafe, Rahul Arora of Bon Appetit, Gaurav Kamani of The Grid and Rochelle D'Souza of Lighthouse Advisors India Pvt Ltd.

Both Reddy and Choudhuri highlighted the need to go the extra mile so far as customer satisfaction is concerned to stay ahead of competition.

Choudhuri said that his customer executives are not allowed to call the customer before delivering the order, not even to ask for directions. They are penalised if they break the rule.

Also delivering the exact items a customer has ordered is very important, said the co-founder of Big Basket. "If you cannot deliver the items a customer has asked for and he or she has to go to a store to get that item, you will not be there preferred supplier any more," he said.

So Big Basket banks on technological innovations, even capturing the exact geographical location of a customer's address by plotting its longitudes and latitudes.

Rochelle D'Souza spoke about what do the investors look for in a new start-up before they fund them 

The programme concluded with the Swiggy Presents F&B Entrepreneurship Awards. Sagar Daryani won the Food Entrepreneur of the Year award. The Corner Courtyard, Mrs Magpie, 6 Ballygunge Place were some of the other winners.