Pune: National Restaurant Association of India (NRAI), the leading association for the restaurant industry since 1982, inaugurated a one-day ‘Cloud Kitchen and Food Delivery Summit’at Pune recently. An initiative of the NRAI Pune chapter, the 2nd edition of the power-packed summit was presented by DotPe and had over 40 industry leaders sharing their insights and experiences on five-panel discussions ranging from Building Loyalty, Profitability, Fine Dine-In, Future, and Aggregators. The Summit brought together industry leaders, restaurant players, and food aggregators operating in the Cloud Kitchen and Food Delivery Space. It witnessed tremendous response, with around 1000 delegates across India attending the summit. Participants included industry players, distribution and ordering channels, and kitchen infrastructure providers actively investing in this field.
While delivering the inaugural address, Kabir Suri, President of the National Restaurant Association of India (NRAI) and Co-Founder & Director of Azure Hospitality, said, “With over 7000 members and spearheading to tier 2 & 3 cities, NRAI endeavours to build an eco-system, align the members by keeping the fraternity together, provide knowledge and support. The association has been around for 40 years. The ‘Cloud Kitchen and Food Delivery Summit’ was envisioned during the pandemic when the industry went through disruption, and the first edition was successfully held in Mumbai last year. We would like to continuously urge the government to accept our demand of reinstating GST input tax credit, ease of doing business with simplified processes and lesser clearances, as well as award us industry status recognition.”
Kabir Suri added, “The cloud kitchen business is still growing in spite of the fact that people now have started eating and dining out post-pandemic. 23 to 25% commission is still being paid by the cloud kitchen businesses to aggregators and efforts are being taken to bring down these commissions. The target is to bring down the commission between 15 to 17 %. The current AOV (average order value) needs to go up; that’s the only solution. A minimal-price unit product being sold will not generate profit. Hence the higher the AOV, the more money the aggregators will have. The issue is on the price parity where one cannot have the same price of products for every aggregator platform.”
Vikram Bakshi, Past President& Trustee, NRAI and Chairman of Ascot Hotels & Resorts, said, “This is a very exciting time for the food business, and the growth of the food business has immense opportunities for all. An online food delivery service is not a trend; it is a lifestyle. It is like having a personal chef but in the most cost-effective way possible. The online food delivery business worldwide is expected to grow by $452 billion by 2030. India alone is expected to grow at a CAGR of 20 to 30 percent by 2030. The online food delivery business in India has come a long way. From Mumbai Dabbawallas earlier to Swiggy and Zomato today, with the help of technology are able to create a seamless market for online food delivery. Cloud kitchens or Ghost Kitchens are a great concept and have opened a gateway for the start-up ecosystem too. The critical areas of focus are quality, consistency, and customer satisfaction. It is about creating a seamless ordering experience and meeting expectations.”
Praful Chandawarkar, Head, NRAI Pune Chapter and Founder & Managing Director, Malaka spice, “The 2nd edition has focused on bringing out better solutions with the required support for the industry as a whole. The Summit is an initiative to gain insights into industry trends and market opportunities as well as explore ways to support business growth at all levels. The topics dived deeper into the evolving business models of startups, the role of technology & innovation in improving effectiveness, the increasing demand for food aggregators, and the boost in the cloud kitchen business. NRAI is piloting an initiative to build a community of restaurants through a loyalty network thought process of 500 restaurants to see the growth and response so that it can be expanded to other cities.”
Some of the eminent speakers were Aadarsh Choudhary, Director, Vision Foodworks Pvt. Ltd; Chaitanya Chitta, Co-Founder, Slay Coffee; Dhruv Dewan, Co-Founder, Thrive; Geetika Gupta, Co-Founder, MOPP; Raghav Joshi, Co-Founder and head, Rebel Foods; and Tarak Bhattacharya, Executive Director, MOD, Bansi Kotecha, Co-Founder, Kytchens; Gaurav Gite, Founder, Marrakesh; Piyush Kankaria, Co-founder, The Yellow Straw; Ravish Arora, Founding Director, Innvenue; Raymond Andrews, Founder, Biryani Blues; Sameer Khetarpal, CEO, Jubilant Foodworks Ltd; and SaranshGoila, Celebrity Chef and Co-Founder, Goila Butter Chicken; Akshay Quenim, Founder & Chief Immerser, Tataki, Goa; Aniruddha Patil, Founder, Pune Eat Outs; IlvikaChandawarkar, Business Development Manager, Malaka Spice; Rachel Goenka, Chief Executive Officer, Chocolate Spoon; Siddhi Gokhale, Co-Founder, Ginkgo Pune; Swapnil Bajpai, VP- Sales, Swiggy; Anand Sharma, Director, Channel/Customer/ GTM at Pepsico; Ankur Jain, Founder & CEO, Udyog Yantra Technologies; Anurag Gupta, Co-Founder, Dotpe; Atish Aloor, Co-Founder, Cloudchef; Dheeraj Gupta, Managing Director, Jumbo King; Karan Tanna, CEO, Ghost Kitchens and Anshul Gupta, Co-Founder, Eatclub/Box8; Anurag Katriar, Founder, Indigo Hospitality Pvt. Ltd; Dr. Abhinav Saxena, Founder & CEO, Cloud Kitchen Network; Mayur Sharma, Chief Energy Officer, Zomato; Rohit Kapoor, CEO- of Food Marketplace, Swiggy; Vishal Jindal, Founder & Co-CEO, Biryani by Kilo.
About NRAI
The National Restaurant Association of India is the voice of the Indian Restaurant Industry. Founded in 1982, it represents the interests of 500000+Restaurants, an industry valued at INR 4.23 lakh crores. Being the leading association of the Indian Restaurant Industry, NRAI aspires to promote and strengthen the Indian Food Service Sector. NRAI aspires to lead the Indian Restaurant Industry to greater profitable growth. It represents the interests of members through advocacy, training, research and industry events.
For further information: www.NRAI.org
