Now an app that can check your food consumption

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.