IT’S ABOUT SURVIVAL
Biju Koshy, owner of Tharavad, is seeing the shift in business model brought on by Covid-19. He operates restaurants as well as an industrial kitchen focused on corporate clients.
“Given the many safety guidelines in place, it was better to remain closed because no one was turning up at the restaurants,” said Koshy. “At one of the locations, we focused only on delivery and catering orders.
“Our industrial kitchen too got hit because one of the corporate clients terminated the contract. So, from the average of 4,000 meals a day we delivered to clients, it dropped to 1,800. But that was still enough to make a margin out of. It would have been a disaster if my business was entirely dependent on restaurants.
“I always maintain that if restaurants are the showrooms in the F&B business, then kitchens are its warehouses. Rights, it’s the warehouses that are making money in F&B.”
Client mix and healthy snacking helps
A client base dominated by corporates served Munchbox well during the Covid-19 months.
“The verticals we cater to are airlines, hospitality and the public sector,” said Radhika Sil — Head of Operations and R&D. “The consumer market for us in terms of individual orders has always been less than 20 per cent of our revenue.
“We adapted to the new economic climate, focused only on urgent operational expenses and moved our procurement to local purchases. That allowed us flexibility due to the quick supply. “With clients working remotely, munching on healthy snacks took on an upward curve. We capitalised on this with market feedback run via our analytics team and tailored optimised snacking based on current needs.”