Corporate caterers pivot to stay solvent

Bengaluru: Corporate caterers are pivoting business models and expanding into newer categories, following a steep fall in core business over the last two months due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Elior India, Sodexo and Compass, as well as smaller players like Hungerbox, Petoo and Zoiffin say office cafeterias will sport a different look once social distancing measures and a focus on hygiene take root as India Inc gradually restarts and reimagines workplaces.
They say pre-packaged food trays, vending machines and contactless dining practices will become the order of the day, replacing traditional food courts, live counters and shared resources - microwaves and coffee machines — in cafeterias. “In the short term, food at work will undergo a transformation of a type the world has not seen in its living memory,” says Sanjay Kumar, CEO of Elior India.

Technology will reduce the number of contact points in food delivery and fundamentally shift the industry, he added. The back-end kitchens will also see significant enhancement of personal protective equipment and facial recognition thermal cameras to detect body temperature, among others. Sodexo said it had already begun deploying some of these at enterprises. The firm has also launched a marketplace with Rebel Foods and a smart vending machine partnership with Big Basket to serve hot meals round the clock and through no physical contact. “The cafeteria is (a) location where digital ordering, boxed meals and virtual card payments can be of great help,” said Karan Totlani, corporate services director of Sodexo India.

Some startups in the space are thinking of using Internet of Things and hardware solutions to automate high-touchpoint tasks, like tea counters and manual kitchen processes. “High-contact vending machines, and external vendors multiply infection risk. We've built a Desi Chai Maker for small to medium sized offices with a smart temperature driven brew process that optimizes for flavour extraction, taking skill out of the equation," said Shirish Subramanian, founder of Ubaal Chai. Others like Daalchini are providing healthy home-cooked food to professionals through IoT enabled vending machines.

“We are present in over 200 office complexes and also started placing kiosks in residential areas,” said Prerna Kalra, cofounder, Daalchini. Across the board, caterers are narrowing their exposure to offices and expanding to adjacent markets including industrial workforce, subscription programmes and consumer packaged food. “In early March, we started working on a parallel strategy to build alternative revenue channels,” said Kumar Setu, cofounder of Petoo, which operated more than 40 takeaway counters at company premises and dine-in restaurants across 8 cities prior to the pandemic. The company launched Cloudfood, a meal subscription platform for corporates and individuals, and Hello-Fresh, a packaged gravies kit.

MOUNTING PRESSURE
Institutional food tech company Hungerbox said mid to small sized vendors will be hurt the most amid the economic uncertainty. “We have taken 200 staff from our food vendors and brought them on to our rolls, and are also discussing a 'support price' to food partners to ensure that they can tide over during this time,” said Sandipan Mitra, CEO of HungerBox.

Other small players, for instance, Ashish and Deepti Nanda’s Mom’s Kitchen supplied corporate meals to Accenture India’s Gurugram facility. “When Covid-19 (outbreak) hit, we shifted the focus to deliver only packed food and exited all live kitchen operations,” he said. The company has launched an app, Zoffin, which aggregates demand from individuals and corporates through a network of resellers. The stress caused by the pandemic on the corporate catering sector is global in scale. Compass Group, the world’s biggest catering firm, saw its global revenues halved in April, with about 50% of its operations shut.