The ‘Restaurant India Investment & Development Summit’ witnessed 1000+ attendees, 50+ top league speakers making it one of the largest Restaurant Industry gatherings in the last two years. With 6 keynotes, 5 panel discussions, 4 roundtables covering every aspect of the Restaurant Business from the supply chain, to cloud-kitchen & delivery, and expansion through franchising to raising capital and new geographies for tomorrow’s growth made it the most comprehensive forum that concluded with a power-packed awards night.
Taking a Global view of innovations and changes that have marked the Foodservice sector, Restaurant India and Franchise India group has set a benchmark with Restaurant India Investment & Development Summit’ and Indian Restaurant Awards among the Restaurant Fraternity for building a world-class platform on the business of restaurants in India on 17th December, 2021 at Hotel Pullman, Aerocity.
The Summit was themed on ‘Building Restaurant of Tomorrow’ and shared insights on raising investment and planning expansion, strategies for growth, tech-led innovations in food delivery, adoption of technologies including AI, Automation, and Contactless Delivery/Payments.
“In the last two years consuming the food via SHT way- see your food, hear from friends, and then taste the food has brought a digital layer to the foodservice business and an unparalleled opportunity to Build a Food Brand fast” shared Ritu Marya, Editor in Chief Franchise India and Restaurant India.
“The courage to do the IPO during the midst of the pandemic came from our belief that we had the right proposition as a brand and with solid systems to run the enterprise, it pumps the nuisance out of the way and it does not deter you from being bold,” shared Rajeev Varman, CEO of Burger King India. For him, good stories, good partnerships are the core philosophy of Burger King and that’s how they live the brand that has 6700 employees that they call partners on board.
“We had to quickly adapt to delivery because we were primarily a fine-dine group of restaurant chains. We adapted the whole models, started looking kitchen inside kitchens meaning doing multi-brands from the same kitchen and optimized everything from top to bottom because there was a question of survival and all comfort zone was broken,” added Anjan Chatterjee of Speciality Restaurants that was the first restaurant brand in India to go public way back in 2012.
“We are seeing a lot of food businesses adopt supply chain standardization and automation. It is seemingly difficult but it is great to adopt it early because if there is variation in product across locations, it can be detrimental to the brand. So, it’s all about faith, brand building, standardizing the supply chain as the fundamentals of building a brand,” pointed Akshay Bector of Cremica Food Industries Ltd.
The show witnessed participation from across the sector and has seen over 1100 people in attendance in the one day summit. Chaired by Rajeev Varman, CEO, Burger King India the conference, some of the key speakers included; Anjan Chatterjee of Speciality Restaurants, Kabir Suri, President – NRAI and Co-Founder Azure Hospitality, Akshay Jatia from McDonald’s, Karan Kapur, Executive Director at K Hospitality Corp and Rajneet Kohli, President & CBO, Domino’s India to name a few.
The Industry voiced the need to have a better real estate arbitrage so more locations can be opened up in times to come. Expressing his views, Ashish Kapur who operates Antares shared that Goa is definitely the next big location for the food business. Whereas, Karan Kapur of K Hospitality Corp who has stepped into Africa as a master franchisee of Domino’s sees big opportunities in global markets as do Kabir Suri and Anjan Chatterjee who have also opened restaurants in London.
Top chefs like Chef Saby Gorai, Chef Vineet Manocha from Lite Bite Food, and Chef Sandeep Pande, Executive Chef at JW Marriott Delhi talked about food becoming the more powerful equation in the whole game, and how the need for automation will change the back of the house and restaurant at large.
On the evening of the Summit, Restaurant India hosted 10th Indian Restaurants Awards acknowledging and rewarding the best in the restaurant business. Sponsored by Cremica Food Industries Ltd.’ Powered by Partner – Petpooja, Conversational Messaging Partner – Gupshup; Associate Partners- Karamat, DroptheQ and Regal Kitchen; Soulful Packaging Partner- Chuk, Supporting Association – National Restaurant Association of INDIA (NRAI); Coffee Board of India; FH&RA, Media Partners- The Sunday Guardian; Hospitalitybiz, the show will be telecasted on national channel NewsX. Over 60 Top Brands from all over India won the award for their exemplary resilience and Innovative makeover of the business.
