My initial journey in the food business was purely because of passion and interest – moreover I am an ardent foodie. Over the years my priorities reshuffled as I had to bring in profitability, scalability and above all sustainability into the equation if I am going to see this through. The young romantic notion of pursuing your passion will always take a beating when things are not rosy and as they say – Lessons will be repeated till you learn and change.

I have been taught to be keep things down low, not to step on others toes and most importantly not being haughty. With the high mortality rate of businesses in hospitality industry, I have noticed that people:

1) Don’t realise they need help

2) Don’t know whom and where to ask for help

3) Are afraid to ask for help

Since there are a very few qualified people who are willing to share their experience and knowledge, there are plenty of people who want to take this opportunity and probably take the seeker for a ride. I see very few people who actively want to help startups or struggling companies to genuinely help them come out of their current plight. Many a times the situation is such where we all become “prisoners of our own device” as the famous song “Hotel California” by “The Eagles” goes.

If you ask me personally, I can possibly write more on the things one shouldn’t do in the Food Business than the things we should do. My experience has been riddled with a lot of failures and very expensive lessons. None the less, I have been relentless in pursuing to become a better professional and entrepreneur. I have to specifically thank the time in which pandemic forced me to think differently and realign my belief system. I had a lot of time to put my experiences and thoughts to paper and take small steps to realign my businesses for the future. Believe it or not – many a times going against conventional hospitality business ideologies yielded better results as the world was rapidly changing during and post pandemic. If at all anything it will continue to change – for change is the only constant.

God Almighty had given me a chance to pause, rethink, consolidate and realign my available resources for building a better business. I think the journey will continue with more learning and discovery. The reason I am writing this is because, I am seeing so many entrepreneurs in the food and beverage space – be it in manufacturing, retail and or service are struggling to move forward. I believe the struggle is good but with a little help they can go a long way in becoming better professionals and entrepreneurs.

For those who don’t know what I do, here’s are a few things about me. I have a Food Processing Business which does base products for the food service businesses across regions and countries. I have a Chef Training Academy and have been training Qualified Professional Pastry and Bakery Chefs. I also have a Food Retail Business that leverages my skill and experience in Phygital (Physical + Digital) Food experiences. Even if a fraction of what I share can help a fellow entrepreneur/ professional in moving forward, I believe I would have filled a part of my obligation in paying it forward.

𝗡𝗼 𝗼𝗻𝗲 𝘄𝗶𝗹𝗹 𝗸𝗻𝗼𝘄 𝗶𝘁 𝗯𝗲𝘁𝘁𝗲𝗿 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝗻 𝘆𝗼𝘂: Either when we start a business or amidst running one – the nature of the beast is chaos of different degrees. Only you alone will be able to understand and take decisions on what needs to be done. It’s always prudent to discuss with your team or a well wisher or someone who knows – but your gut instinct will always guide you through and we have to learn to trust the same. When I was in the process of setting my different businesses different people had different thoughts on why I shouldn’t spread myself too thin or I will loose my focus and so on. Today, thanks to God Almighty, I am seeing it all coming together to work for my big picture – only the entrepreneur has the mind map to envision the big picture and work towards it.

𝗣𝗼𝘀𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗼𝗳 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗱𝘂𝗰𝘁𝘀 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗼𝗿 𝘀𝗲𝗿𝘃𝗶𝗰𝗲𝘀: Many of us when we are entering the market with our product and or service, we are so hung up on the competitors pricing. It is good to be aware of your competition, but each to their own – this is where one’s own clarity on their product/ service business itself will make the difference. Today’s customers are well informed – they will either embrace you or choose some one better suited for their needs. One thing is absolutely certain – if your product/ service fulfils their needs consistently they will be there with you. So knowing who exactly your customer/ guest is and what are they specifically looking for is absolute paramount. There will always be gaps in the market and if you are able to carve a niche for yourself, communicate this clearly with your target group and deliver what you promise – the chances for your business being successful is bright. I entered a hyper competitive food retail space, where there was practically no entry barrier. I positioned my product as a premium product leveraging the gaps in the market and now I am able to consistently see growth, profitability and scale. Want to know more? Ask me!

𝗦𝗼𝗹𝘃𝗲 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗼𝘄𝗻 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗯𝗹𝗲𝗺𝘀: Many a times I have observed that people wait for others to solve their problem – two things happen here:

1) Time is wasted for the challenge to be resolved by waiting for others

2) No one can give you a perfect solution for YOUR problem

Best way out is for you to either find the solution or make a solution. Before the pandemic, restaurant owners and operators were ok with the aggregators taking anywhere between 10% to 30% (depending on size and scale of business) of the delivery value. This was when dine in could possible be around 70% and delivery was around 30% of the total business. The over all margins balanced somewhat in keeping the business up and running. The moment pandemic hit, the ratios flipped with delivery being as high 95% – this completely destabilised most of the P&L and many businesses had to be closed due to non viability. I see many business owners complaining in so many forums and meet-ups on the unfairness of aggregators of their cost being high, the aggregators having complete control on the customer data and the business so on and so forth. I just paused and thought how restaurant businesses did delivery 15 years ago. Most restaurants used to have from one bike to as many as their business required. When customers called for delivery even some industrious restaurant operators even had some rudimentary CRM software to track order history and such. They had good information on their customer preference, anniversaries, most ordered items and so on. This is missing now as we have outsourced all the above to a business which still doesn’t break even after collecting 30% of our bill value. I decided to go against the current trend and tried having our own asset light delivery fleet management services, integrate technology and made it work. The result, I am able to service my growing set of customers with better precision and control, have more data on how to service them better, cross sell products and above all have a profitable operation. Want to know more? Ask me!

𝗜𝗻𝘃𝗲𝘀𝘁 𝗶𝗻 𝗴𝗼𝗼𝗱 𝗽𝗲𝗼𝗽𝗹𝗲 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝘁𝗲𝗰𝗵𝗻𝗼𝗹𝗼𝗴𝘆: Good team is a must for running a good business. Unfortunately good people cannot be store bought. People are people and have their own plus and minus just like the entrepreneur themselves. We have to identify like minded people who can travel with us, invest in them by providing personal and professional growth – empowering them, make them accountable and reward them for their results. Business should be ongoing whether the entrepreneur is there or not and designing such a platform requires clarity, skill, discipline and a good team who are as invested in the business as much as the owners. As competition is picking up, the future cannot be positive unless we automate operations either physical work and or otherwise. The level of automation in the kitchen today is astounding as what it was say even 20 years ago as it’s all about being faster, better, tastier and so on. As the demand vs supply of skilled manpower is a constant battle, investing into automation will be prudent – be it for dish washing or vegetable cutting or so many other task which can take the load off the operations. A blend of good people and good technology can be a huge differentiation. Want to know more? Ask me!

As I keep typing away, I realise that I can keep going on. But the length of this post shouldn’t dissuade folks who are genuinely looking for help. I am sure many would have scrolled over by seeing the length of this post. All of the above is from my own personal experience. I don’t claim to be a success guru or coach or mentor. I am purely sharing what has been working for me off late. I am still learning and will continue to share the same to folks who are facing similar challenges – pro bono. If you think this can help someone please feel free to share or ping me.

𝗙𝗼𝗿 𝘂𝘀 𝘁𝗼 𝗯𝗲 𝘁𝗿𝘂𝗹𝘆 𝗵𝗮𝗽𝗽𝘆, 𝗜 𝗮𝗺 𝗼𝗳 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝘀𝘁𝗿𝗼𝗻𝗴𝗲𝘀𝘁 𝗯𝗲𝗹𝗶𝗲𝗳, 𝘄𝗲 𝗵𝗮𝘃𝗲 𝘁𝗼 𝗴𝗶𝘃𝗲 𝗺𝗼𝗿𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝗻 𝘄𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝘄𝗲 𝘁𝗮𝗸𝗲.

𝗧𝗶𝗹𝗹 𝗻𝗲𝘅𝘁 𝘁𝗶𝗺𝗲, 𝗵𝗮𝘃𝗲 𝗮 𝗳𝗮𝗻𝘁𝗮𝘀𝘁𝗶𝗰 𝗱𝗮𝘆!