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Restaurant Consultants Have Their Plates Full

Business Standard

A booming food business offers varied fare

They are the new foodies. With the booming food business in the country, restaurant consultants of all hues have their plates full.

In the last couple of years, the restaurant business has enticed businessmen like Vikram Thapar, Ajay Bijli, Amit Burman and VN Dalmia, Bollywood personalities Asha Bhosle, Sunil Shetty and Amisha Patel and national icon Sachin Tendulkar.

This eclectic lot has big bucks, but neither the acumen nor the palate to set up the business. That’s where the consultants come in.

Heading the menu are facility planners like Narinder Verma, Rishi Dayal and Ram Vithal Rao. They help restaurant owners do up the kitchen (some of them own fabrication units where they make all the equipment required in a kitchen), air-conditioning, power back-up and the works.

Mumbai-based RK Foodland specialises in managing the food supply chain.

“We provide the entire supply chain from the farm to the plate,” says the company’s chairman, Raju Sheté.

Restaurants all over the country, Sheté says, have realised the importance of safe hygienic food and have therefore turned to companies like RK Foodland.

“We bring the same standards in the supply chain as are prevalent in the US and Europe,” he adds. Sheté has already tied up with about 60 restaurants, including Indigo and Copper Chimney in Mumbai.

And there is at least one company — Under One Roof Consultants — which provides the whole range of services except design and interiors for Rs 5-6 lakh.

It also does feasibility reports and financial projections for restaurants, at times even drawing up a report for the bankers.

It has a well-stacked library about the culture and cuisine of the whole world, which helps it draw themes for new restaurants.

The company, claims its Managing Director Manu Mohindru, is working on no less than 30 new projects at present. “We guarantee breakeven to our clients in 18 months,” says he.

With huge investments which yield post tax returns of up to 30 per cent lined up in the sector, these consultants are riding the gravy train.

At the moment, it’s party time for restaurant consultants.