Anoothi Vishal breaks down the business of food in her new book

Your popularity on social media cannot guarantee consistent customers. This and other findings from Anoothi Vishal, whose new book — Business on a Platter: What Makes Restaurants Sizzle or Fizzle Out — highlights the challenges foodpreneurs face today.

Author, analyst and curator — she is the founder of the Great Delhi Pop-up and has events like Johnnie Walker’s Gourmet Experience to her credit — Anoothi Vishal has been observing our F&B industry at close quarters for decades now. Long enough to bring out a book on it. Business on a Platter: What Makes Restaurants Sizzle or Fizzle Out, Vishal’s second book, is a guide of sorts for those looking to wear the hat of a restaurateur. “It is not enough to write about food or restaurants merely as an object of consumption. You need to go deeper into the business of food,” she says, perhaps offering a note of caution to both the influencer and potential foodpreneur. We catch up with her to talk about the changing landscape. Edited excerpts:

Can a home cook be as successful as a restaurateur, with the right marketing and social media?

It is a myth to think that if enough people ‘like’ you on social media, they will be consistent customers. Most metros have similar restaurants with very little qualitative differentiation, who find it impossible to hold on to customers after the initial ‘buzz’ has faded. If the basics are not okay, no amount of social media or marketing can help. They can only assist in growing an already strong product into a brand, not change the game. In fact, I’d advise one to be wary of social media, rather than be bolstered by it.

How are food delivery platforms, like Swiggy and Dunzo, changing the ‘eating out’ experience?

These are convenient platforms for consumers with their readily-available choices. However, when there is deep discounting, it hurts not just the restaurants, but our whole eating-out culture. The truth is that people do not have that much money to spend in restaurants. Instead of having one luxury, high-quality meal in a month, [today] they are happier to spend the same amount of money at lower standard places, four times a month. The discount culture is hard-wired into many of us and online platforms are playing to it. But this needs to be broken, both by aggregators and the restaurants themselves, if the standard is to become better in India.

from The Hindu - Life & Style 
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