Author: Asmita Mukherjee | Hyderabad
The Indian Hospitality industry has been witnessing a ton of progress lately. After the pandemic, the industry has shifted to digital payment, bookings and infusing tech into other operations. Now the industry is becoming a key consumer of Web3, Non-Fungible Tokens (NFT) and AR/VR environments. The industry is exploring various areas like marketing, advertising, and guest experiences with the metaverse. While some industry experts are gung-ho about adopting these advanced technologies, others are a bit sceptical due to the high initial expense involved. Asmita Mukherjee spoke with industry experts to understand the sentiment around these technologies. According to a recent…
Rajan Sethi, Founder & Director, Bright Hospitality Pvt. Ltd. is a proud Indian restaurateur who spent his college days in Sydney. He identified the current gap of connecting food to the local produce in the culinary world. Sethi who has immense belief in the country’s culture thinks that Indian cuisine can give a healthy competition to any of the International cuisines, provided it is promoted correctly. In its portfolio, the brand boasts of restaurants like The G.T. Road, Ikk Panjab, OMO, and AM.PM., which promotes Indian culture and its cuisines. His concerted effort for elevating the position of Indian cuisine,…
Asmita Mukherjee | Hyderabad Little Italy restaurant which was founded in Pune by Raj Mehta along with an Italian chef is known for its unmatched authentic Italian fare. About 33 years ago in 1989, Mehta saw a blank space for a good vegetarian Italian fine dining experience. Pioneering ahead, he grew Little Italy to a nationwide footprint with over 60+ outlets across 20 cities and 4 countries. Now the reign is being helmed by his son Amrut Mehta. Under Amrut’s able leadership the brand has explored branches internationally and different QSR formats. At Hyderabad, Little Italy is located in the…
Asmita Mukherjee | Hyderabad Annyeonghaseyo India! Of late, Korean culture has gained significant popularity in India, all thanks to K- Dramas and K- Pop. The love for Korean culture has also amplified Korean food popularity in our country. To cater to this dedicated passion for Korean food among Indians, China Bistro Restaurant – a part of Foodlink F&B Holdings India recently commenced the Dolsot – Sizzling Stone Festival. The food festival is named after Dolsot, which is actually a small-sized piece of cookware made of Pagodite – a variety of stone used by Chinese artisans for carvings in pagodas and similar objects. The stoneware…
Asmita Mukherjee | Hyderabad Samarthya Bhargava’s enduring interest in the restaurant business led him to invest in a few restaurants in Delhi NCR and Goa. His learning from these ventures was that the back-end of the restaurant business is fraught with problems of adhocism, opacity, unscientific buying, lack of precision in inventory management, and unreliable supply chains. The drive to provide solutions for countering these challenges was the prime motivation for him to launch SMS SupplyPort or SupPort. In a conversation with Asmita Mukherjee Bhargava said that the aim of the brand is to aggregate restaurant demand for consumables, systemize…
Asmita Mukherjee | Hyderabad The World of Brands launched its home-grown brand Great Indian Gin (GiG) on 11th June 2022 which is celebrated as the World Gin Day. The idea behind the brand was to create an Indian Gin which perfectly matches the country’s palate. Speaking about the inception of the brand Gurpreet Singh, Co-Founder & Director, World of Brands (WoB) said, “Our first endeavour was to create a brand that Indians from across the world would be proud of. The Great Indian Gin is crafted for the Indian palate and represents the versatile youth of today. It is a…
Barbeque buffet restaurant chain – Absolute Barbecues (popularly known as AB’s) is aiming to reach its 100th outlet by 2024. In a recent interaction with Hospitality Biz at a press conference organised at Hyderabad, Vivek Kolukula, Territory Manager, AP & TS, Absolute Barbecues informed that the brand which has 60 outlets across India, covering 23 cities is now mulling a rapid expansion. “Within the next 18-24 months we want to hit 100 marks across India. To be in line with the current expansion plan we are targeting to open two outlets per month. We are opening 3 outlets this month.…
As the market opens up after a hiatus of two years, hotel companies are inclining towards an asset-light model to expand faster in the market. According to BCG, asset-light models can deliver a better return on assets, lower profit volatility, greater flexibility, and higher scale-driven cost savings than asset-heavy models. While “light” is not always the right choice—and sometimes is absolutely the wrong choice—its applicability is growing. Asmita Mukherjee spoke with industry experts to know the pros and cons of being asset-light. Rapid Expansion: A key benefit The asset-light model involves managing and franchising (pre-existing properties) hotels rather than owning…
American Brew Crafts, a home-grown beer manufacturing company, recently launched its flagship brand BlockBuster beer. The company is now mulling rapid expansion across Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh and Odisha by next month and across Gujarat, Delhi, West Bengal and the North Eastern part of the country (Sikkim, Manipur, Nagaland) by next year. In a freewheeling conversation with Asmita Mukherjee, Srikanth Naraparaju, Chief Strategy Officer, American Brew Crafts mentioned that due to the positive response received by the brand from the consumers, such a huge and rapid expansion across the country has been planned. “We started with the two markets of Telangana and…
Chef Davinder Kumar, President of Indian Culinary Forum who is also the Vice President – F&B (Production), Hotel Le Meridien New Delhi recently spoke with Asmita Mukherjee regarding the Indian Culinary Forum and the vision of the event for the future of the culinary industry. What was your vision while forming the ICF? When I entered the culinary world 5 decades ago, we were called ‘khansamas’. The profession wasn’t respected much back then, and none of the parents would encourage their children to take it up as the first career option. This had to change, as careers in the culinary…
