In a bid to curb the growing health and fitness issues, Mumbai based food curator, Holachef, has announced its Android app with a feature that allows consumers to keep a real-time check on the food consumption in their fast-moving mobile lifestyle.
The Holachef android app uses the power of technology to bring a unique combination of Food & Health-check in a single feature with alarm-settings, complimenting with World Health Day’s theme to ‘Beat Diabetes’.
“Food intake at the right time attributes to a larger purpose of staying healthy and happy for our consumers and we like to contribute to this need. Addition of the ‘My Health’ feature to Holachef’s Android app is amongst the many simple and effective initiatives which we like to undertake for our consumers who consider us as their extended kitchen that has the option of the right quality food available at the right time for a healthy lifestyle,” shared Saurabh Saxena, Founder and CEO, Holachef.
Advocating the health mantra of Eat right at the right time Holachef has taken one of the first steps amongst Food Tech companies to address the health needs by introducing simple yet effective steps of self-monitoring food consumption.
Continuing its vision of providing home-made qualitative food offerings, Holachef’s everyday menu consists of wider variety that contains carefully chosen ingredients that are healthy and suitable for daily consumption.
While the Breakfast section helps consumers pre-order and get food delivered in office instead of skipping morning meals, the evening snacks and the packaged food category ‘Flavours’ help cater to in-between hunger pangs beyond lunch and dinner time.
Some of the many food items in snack category include, products like –salads, whole wheat wraps, boiled eggs with sprouts, however the Flavours segment offers a variety of packaged eatables of roasted whole grains with nuts and oats, dry fruits, fresh juices, baked chips and snacks, condiments, nutrition bars, etc.
At a time when eateries are becoming “open-and-shut cases“ restaurant reservation apps seem to be doing the industry a favour and justifying the nominal fee they charge restaurants. Unique concepts are helping the diners discover new places and restaurants get new diners, stretching the entire experience together.
You would agree that when it comes to restaurants suddenly we become a little more impatient. We can’t wait in queue, can’t wait to get our food and finally when we finish eating, we can’t wait to get the check and pay the bill. The whole bill delivery, check, and tip process takes a minimum of 2 and sometime 3-4 trips of the waitress/waiter. It puts a lot of pressure on the overall functioning of the restaurant. To address this pain point, technology has invaded, targeting Bars and Restaurants specifically.
The tables are turning. Food delivery apps like Swiggy and FreshMenu brought gourmet to the doorstep. Now, dining reservation apps like Dineout and EazyDiner, want to take people back to restaurants. To woo clientele, they are offering reservations, slashed bills, cashbacks and loyalty points.
5 Ways Technology is Leveraging New Concepts
Despite usual dining etiquette, sometimes it's OK to play with your phone at the table, even when you’re at a restaurant. Especially if you’re using one of the cool, new apps specifically designed to enhance your dining out experience.
Whether you’re looking to score a reservation at a hot new restaurant, to pair the perfect wine with your entrée, or to pay your bill with your phone, there’s no shortage of apps on the menu to make eating out even more awesome.
Keep it Simple
Just listen to the restaurant, know their needs and build it on a platform which is scalable and solve real life problems. Technology helps in simplifying the process of reserving a seat, checking the desired availability and acquiring whooping discounts for that reservation.
Choose the Unconventional Way
Today people don’t venture out without reserving a table. They are not just discovering but also taking action on the portal as well. But the use of mobile devices isn’t limited to the serving side of things. They can be used to track inventory, regular checklists, and can go so far as to be used in a similar way we use in our own home kitchens – as a way to help out new kitchen workers get a handle on the restaurant’s menu items.
Recent times have witnessed the replacement of pen & paper with softwares & digitized ways of taking feedbacks, their CRM tools which help them in gaining customer attention and carry out their marketing campaigns.
Transaction Made Easy
Depending on a research, it takes diners 10-12 minutes from deciding they want the bill to leaving. But with technological invention with apps like Dineout has reduced this to just a few seconds. Integrating payments, huge jump in transactions powered through the payment gateway. Indian Food tech giant Dineout, a leading payment gateway transaction for the restaurants currently that has a huge customer reach, driving close to 8crore GVM for the restaurants.
High-Tech Help
There have been a variety of iPad mounts for the kitchen available for our homes for some time, but now we’re seeing them invade the kitchens and dining areas of restaurants. Restaurants have started allowing diners to use iPads to place their orders.
Mobile devices come into play in a variety of ways, and what happens with them while in the customer’s hands both inside and outside the walls of a restaurant can have a huge impact on an establishment’s success.
Boosting Customer Relationship
Now that apps are not only more interactive but also easier to navigate, they have quickly become a go-to technology for consumers who frequent quick service restaurants. Customizable apps allow customers to set preferences on their mobile devices and allow restaurant chains to respond to those preferences.
The best results are usually achieved when QSRs make use of multiple channels to send different types of messages to customers that help create a better dining experience. It also gives QSR brands more ways to learn about their customers.
Who doesn’t love the crunchy layers of samosa and the spiciness of their favourite chole kulcha but are afraid to try them at any street food vendors. Food safety is a major concern in India today. Though, the country has welcomed an array of international cuisines but maintaining the safety and hygiene standard is still not up to the mark. And, to solve this problem, FSSAI together with the Ministry of Skill is on a ride to provide hygienic street foods to the food lovers.
Here are five takeaways for you to take home from Health Minister JP Nadda’s speech:
Changing the system: before 2014 the regulators have a very different image and the production side too comes under the image. The corporate thought to remain aloof from all system and the NGO thought that how do they approach the government and see to it to contribute in the whole process. But, today the government is trying to change the system making his wording true ‘sab ka saath sab ka vikaas’ involving all the people together when it comes to coutntry's growth.
Consumer friendly: The government is building an effective team that can connect with the consumers and asking the regulators to be friendly with the consumers. FSSAI recently hosted a programme on food safety initiative wherein it invited people from different fields in an open discussion making it a friendly approach.
Health is wealth: But, in line with this, the food safety watchdog has made it a point that the food being served not only at street vendors but also at restaurants is meeting the basic health parameters.
Educating the vendors: As they are the biggest contributors in the development of the economy, training and education is the need of the hour. FSSAI which is on food safety ride has partnered with local NGOs to train these vendors about the basic hygiene practice.
Make it a practice: Food safety issue should be made a regular practice. Mechanising and industrialising the programme is very essential so as the vendors adhere to it.
Hence, I feel that with government all gear up to change the scenario of food safety in India, the street food is going to be more tasty and hygienic now. Please do share your feedback by commenting on our Facebook, Twitter page.
Over the years, e-commerce buzz is heating the fast evolving restaurant space in India. Gone are the days, when people are restricted to ordering food via certain aggregators or players like Zomato, Dineout amongst others. Today, not only customers’, but restaurant owners also look at ease of experience to their loyal and regular customers’.
Making the ‘mobile’ way
“We have a high repeat customer base, and wanted to offer them ease of use for all their Chaayos experiences, be it takeaway pre-ordering, home delivery or their loyalty program information. The delivery app is the first step to improve your experience at Chaayos,” shared Raghav Verma, Co-Founder, Chaayos.
With number of Smartphone users rising in India, the m-commerce market to reach $19 billion by 2019, leaving behind unexplored opportunities to grow smooth business.
According to a report, “right from user research to product anytime and anywhere, smartphones are an emerging point of purchase changing consumers shopping pattern.”
Recently, Big Fish Ventures, which runs some of the wackiest cafes and restaurants in Delhi has come up with their own app making their customers’ more loyal towards their brand.
"Most firms are focused on creating single brands with standardized formats like, for example, a McDonald's or a KFC. We are building a cluster of concept--based different brands across genres and large formats," pointed Umang Tewari, Owner, Big Fish Ventures.
Neck to neck competition
However, this trend is very niche in restaurant business scenario in the country, but it may set a trend for large multi format restaurant chains and cafes developing their own apps and eventually posing competition to the specialized dining and reservation app operators like Zomato, Dineout, Easydiner and Reserveyourtable.
"We will bring over 2 lakh customers on our mobile app by end of 2016 and will be doing over 5000 table reservations per day by June 2016. We plan to invest over 3-4 million dollars over next 3 years," added Tewari who is excited with new development in the country.
As consumers are much more focused on buying or ordering a product or getting the best offers through their smartphones, this may push the industry to experiment with the app opportunity. Likewise, Chaayos, which was the first cafe in India to have their app gets majority of their delivery revenue, comes from Chaayos app.
“The response has been amazing, we have 300% higher repeat orders than our other channels, and a majority of our delivery revenue comes through Chaayos App,” pointed Verma who sees Zomato and Dineout as partners and not a competitor.
However, these promotions are marketed through their own cafes and through social media marketing, it could gain more traction capturing the younger generations.
By now technology has touched every aspect of our lives, with the coming out of mobile devices on the table, online reservations, social media and new payment methods; technology has infiltrated the food and restaurant industry like never before. These advances have made an impact everywhere, but one of the places we’re seeing more and more technology is in the food and restaurant industry.
Evolution in the process
The rapid evolution of software in the past decade has seen many tech innovations when it comes to dining out. Mobile technology is revolutionizing the way diners interact with restaurants. Although new apps are increasing, accelerating and reforming the dining experience, the ubiquity of smartphones can eclipse some of the very reasons we eat out.
“Technology is like “Duck’s Effect”. If you see a Duck in a pond, duck will look beautiful, calm. But inside she is paddling away like crazy to stay there. We have 19 technology partners and still going on. Technology is disruption, but it helps us to expand in many ways,” shares Rahul Singh, Founder& CEO, The Beer Café.
With the mobile technology you can search endless options, cross-referenced every which way. On the weekend evening, a typical fine-dining establishment might expect 25 percent or more of their reserved customers. But the online reservation services has more than 28,000 member restaurants and seats more than 12 million diners a month, sends hand-slapping emails to no-shows and deactivates users after four personal fouls in a year.
The digital tablets at tables allow one to order food and drinks without so much as consulting the waiter. The time saving technology is being adopted primarily by both casual and chain restaurants, where diners seldom need servers to expound on the laminated menu.
Moreover replacing menus, tablets have the potential to help hosts deal with incoming customers who may have reservations. This can be accomplished through connecting the restaurant’s website to some form of online reservation system using a service like apps or a website and then simply using the tablet as a means of checking out who is scheduled when.
Currently, pick a restaurant, make a booking, order or pay your bill is not a problem. For ex: restaurant reservation platforms, like Dineout can offer more nuanced guidance for the discerning diner. These apps help you in booking the restaurants of your choice avoiding the long queues at the restaurant. " The most important thing in today’s time is to keep the customer happy and loyal and the solution is the technology integration to create the ecosystem enable to go beyond,” says Vivek Kapoor, Co-Founder, Dineout.
Another app, Happy hour apps like DrinkOwl (free, iOS and Android) and Happy Hour Finder (free, iOS and Android) can steer you to the most happening bars and most alluring drink specials around the country.
Adding to the same line, Sharad Sachdeva, Chief Executive Officer, Lite Bite Food, Pvt Ltd points, “As technology plays an important role after certain point of time you cannot imagine your growth on manual system so definitely technology is required. So, we adopted the system and also implemented it”.
Technology is only getting better day by day. It allows customers to find restaurants, rate them, and decide where they want to spend their hard-earned money when they go out to eat. It also allows restaurant owners to be more efficient and effective in the areas they feel can be streamlined by hardware and software.
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