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The restaurant industry has to identify and isolate destructive concepts: AD Singh

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AD Singh, founder & MD of the Olive Group of restaurants feels that deals and discounts that drive customers to businesses and concepts that are built around “best of food and quality dining experiences” lose out in the game. AD Singh, founder & managing director of Olive Group of Restaurants has said that the organised restaurant industry in the country has to identify and weed out businesses built on “destructive concepts”.

He said these destructive concepts built around “valuations and customer base” are posing a great threat for the survival and sustenance of genuine businesses which offer “quality food and dining experiences” to customers. Singh was speaking to ETHospitalityWorld on the sidelines of the ETHW F&B Summit and Nightlife Awards.

“Business models of many companies in India are built around their valuations and customer base which is created by offering discounts and deals. It started with delivery first and then entered the dine in space. This is really destructive,” he said.

He said it is deals and discounts that drive customers to these businesses and concepts which are built around “best of food and quality dining experiences” lose out in the game.

Singh said these businesses also depend on the restaurant industry for their survival and therefore, it is important to identify and isolate them from the ecosystem.

He said that industry associations like National Restaurant Association of India (NRAI) are currently trying to sort out the issue through dialogue with people indulging in such practices and have to think of corrective measures if such attempts do not produce results.

Earlier participating in a panel discussion on ‘Challenges and Rewards of setting up a restaurant in India’, Singh said that the F&B ecosystem in the country is “quite bumpy” because of unpredictability in government policies. He cited the sealing drive in Delhi a decade back which resulted in closing down of trade in many areas in the national capital, followed by the sealing of bar restaurants on highways; and the latest excise policy fracas.

Participating in the same discussion, Kabir Suri, MD, Azure Hospitality and President of NRAI said that a major chunk of the time of a restaurateur is spoiled on things other than business because of the licence raj that exists in the country. He said that each state in India is an independent country when it comes to excise and bar licences.

While the restaurant industry is the second largest employer after the Indian Railways, the industry doesn’t get the prominence and attention it deserves from the government, he said.

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