The Indian food service industry has been witnessing significant strides of growth over the past decade and is integrating new technology every day to cater to food enthusiasts with quick, tasty and juicy bites. The market value of Indian restaurants was recorded at around Rs 4 trillion as per last year’s report and is expected to witness higher levels in the coming years. However, the growth of the sector has not been without its share of obstacles. By 2015-16, food outlets were localised; They were very geography oriented and did not expand much mainly due to lack of demand. But around the same time, renowned aggregators joined the platform ecosystem, which addressed the 3 key aspects of the order cycle, i.e. discovery, demand and delivery.
Online food delivery became popular
During these chaotic times, there was a surge in demand for food orders, amid widespread COVID cases. We saw food being ordered at homes and offices instead of the other way around. This scenario also turned into a bigger concern around the supply of goods. food brand market, and thus every food outlet rushed to fill the gap. Single outlet owners began expanding into multiple locations, while medium-sized retailers with more chains were now looking to expand nationally. Domestic brands were some of the dynamic F&B businesses that benefited from the early mover advantage of this new demand and expanded several times in just a few years. Such was the demand that delivery-only kitchens (cloud/ghost kitchens) flourished in metropolitan cities like Mumbai, Delhi and Bangalore.
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Online ordering has become the next big thing.
At the present time, dine-in has closed, and so has the business. This is when the demand for delivery has started increasing. Massive orders and low discounts are now the new normal and the value conscious Indian customer has evolved into a convenience-focused consumer.
3 big problems arose because of this said shift –
- Huge demand, which brands had to meet across multiple geographies and therefore growing rapidly
- pay attention to the consistency EatMove from dine-in 5-star experience to dine-out 5-star experience
- Develop a cloud kitchen concept and business model
New age food entrepreneurs who were aware of this problem started looking at technologies to solve them; The hallway had become an analytical problem-solving session, and like any other industry, was looking to technology to solve problems.
- Solutions for Continuity – For Kitchen Level Automation to Cook
- solving for scale- automation, menu engineering, in order to achieve
- Solutions for Better Operations- Kiosk Ordering, Supply Chain Management, Digital Menu.
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As food businesses begin to transition online, there are many other automations they can incorporate.
Here are 5 factors that restaurants may consider automating their business:
1. Centralized Dashboard to Help Manage Online Presence
The rise of cloud kitchens is of utmost importance for delivery aggregators. While it is important to make your presence felt on all this and leave no stone unturned in acquiring customers, juggling between dashboard Adds unwanted chaos to your employees. The centralized dashboard not only makes doing business easy but also provides a stronghold with a comprehensive view of your online business. Automation in the industry is helping the sector remain competitive regardless of the crisis.
2. Food-Ordering Kiosk
Large scale brands opted for technology like ordering kiosks at an early stage. However, Covid-19 has also forced medium and small sized businesses to remain open for such technologies, These kiosks allow customers to stroll casually into restaurants, tap their orders, and complete payments without any assistance from human staff.
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Food orders can be placed with the help of kiosks.
Such implementation reduces the time for placing orders and allocation of resources for the business. Plus, it’s much faster and more convenient for the customer to place an order and make a payment.
3. Automation in the Cooking Process
Consistency in taste has always been the most important aspect for the food industry, especially nowadays where a delivery-only model exists and brands do not have the option of swaying their influence in this business. consumers With their exceptional service or ambiance. Cooking automation allows you to substantially cut down on output time while ensuring you follow SOPs and signature recipes as instructed. These automatic cooking machines ensure that the texture and quality of food is consistent and helps in operational efficiency as theft and wastage are minimal.
4. Fresh Food Vending Machines
The next large-scale adoption of fresh food vending machines is anticipated in the food industry. Currently, we have only seen snacks, tea, coffee etc gaining traction for vending machines as it is difficult to bring this technology on the roads in today’s time. However, developments and research in this area have allowed them to bring out a wider portfolio of cuisines. machines, With every daily transaction going digital, the environment is cohesive enough for something like fresh food vending machines. Everyone uses UPI payment applications like Paytm and Google Pay, so one can scan a QR code, pay the amount and collect the food.
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Vending machines can be used not only for packaged goods, but also for fresh food.
5. Inventory Management Solutions
The food industry faces many challenges as they have a huge customer base. Predicting accurate inventory requirements is one of the major challenges and it is practically very difficult to estimate unless you have reasonable statistics and analytics in place. This often results in food waste, costing brands about 2% of their total revenue. Thus, inventory management software can help businesses by providing accurate information on this aspect to increase operational efficiencies and help in return of investment.
The challenges ahead for automation
Collaborative technology and robotic machines have already made their way into the Indian food service sector and are expected to engage intensively with the workforce in the industry to help increase efficiency and anticipate inventory requirements. food service And hospitality businesses have begun to evaluate processes that can be automated, and the ecosystem has become comparatively friendly. Still, a major challenge is that automation has notoriously acquired the appearance of being a costly affair, However, the truth is far from this, as kitchen automation is meant to help streamline operations while reducing costs, ensuring food sustainability is maintained, and providing quick returns on investment within a short period of time.
About the author: Eshwar K Vikas is the Co-Founder and CEO of Mukund Foods.
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