Platforms and Food- Part 1
Platforms are Hungry for Food !
If you have not responded to a Food Photographer’s Challenge or an Instagrammer’s Post during this #LockDown, you must have been busy eating! An unprecedented #LockDown in India and other countries have afforded a chance to many of us to examine our relationship with Food thus disrupting the food related businesses and food itself. Anyways, to paraphrase Andreessen Horowitz, right now platforms are eating the food industry.
DTW
During the Week, we had another pivot (or is it re-pivot?) from Zomato when it exited the grocery delivery business or at least as a top Executive was quoted saying that Zomato is “ . .going to spend a large proportion of our time making our food delivery service the safest, and the most loved one in town”. Coming from a FoodTech Unicorn, this points to battle lines in the food business and how transitions across food ecosystem are becoming difficult though they might be still attractive to many existing and new players. I could identify Three Facets of our relationship with food and how platforms could play a role in determining the future. First, Production and Procurement of food; Second, Food Distribution and Third, ancillary food services businesses.
Platforms in Food Production and Procurement like Udaan and Ninjakart have enabled an ecosystem connecting the farmer/producers to the institutional buyers and seem to have replaced traditional Mandi/ Farmer’s Market. We may go further back in value chain and consider some of the AgriTech platforms like Fasal. Many of these tech-enabled businesses are using high-tech drones, IoT devices and data analytics to solve production and procurement problems in Indian Agriculture. Over last two years, I have worked with Indian Institute of Millets Research and their Technology Business Incubator NutriHub both of which are instrumental in ensuring nutritional security through mentoring Nutricereal startups
We have attempts by regular FoodTech platforms like Zomato and even Amazon to get into the pure agricultural commodities play. Zomato has made significant investments in HyperPure which is a supplies platform for restaurants for broad range of commodities from Fresh Vegetables to Stationary ! What is interesting to note is that many of the small producers are circumventing the regular channels and using platforms to promote and sell their products. HaldiVita is an enterprise by Ankit Khanduri who sources the raw turmeric from farmers supported by AAGAAS’s Chairperson J P Maithani in Garhwal Himalayas. They regularly use Instagram to promote and Swiggy to deliver their products thus bypassing traditional agricultural aggregators and retailers.
Zomato and Swiggy are also the market leaders in food delivery business. Uber tried and left but Amazon is still testing waters. When we talk about Food Distribution, regular grocery players like BigBasket, Amazon, Flipkart and now JioMart are now competing with incumbents like BigBazaar and More with their online services. The rise of Phygital and super apps like WhatsApp-JioMart combine may decide the shape of the sector. At the micro-market level, home-grown platforms like Trice are playing an important role in connecting food vendors, home based chefs and consumers in residential community to create a hyper-local ecosystem.
Platforms have made significant contributions in the ancillary food services including advertising, demand management and creating an outreach to stakeholders. Instagram and Pinterest have made fortunes for food bloggers as well as smaller food joints. Platforms like DineOut , Zomato Book etc have helped the restaurants to manage their customer relationships as well as demand through booking automation. Virtual Kitchens might be the most important investments by food entrepreneurs for getting back to profitability in food business. Platform based Customer loyalty programs like Zomato Gold and Swiggy Super have received lot of flak over last few quarters through #LogOut campaign but they seem to be popular with customers and platform businesses for obvious reasons. Of course, who has missed the cooking shows on multiple streaming platforms like Youtube, Netflix and Amazon Prime. In fact, the popularity of these platform based cooking shows and curated content went up as many people struggled with their own participation or non-participation in Dalgona Coffee Challenge. ;)
Charity Platforms like Feeding India have contributed millions of meals both before and during the Covid-19. Smaller experiments like Food ATM , Food Sharing Platforms and standalone community fridges outside food joints to serve homeless and hungry provide ray of hope in using platforms for greater common good.
OTW
Over the Weekend, we had another episode of binge-eating Dussheri Mangoes at home. This year has been not-so-much-fun for obvious reason as far as mangoes are concerned.And following Mirza Ghlaib advise, I believe in only two things when it comes to Mangoes- “They should be sweet AND They should be available in large quantity”. And do read Dar Sifat-e-Ambah by Mirza Ghalib on why mangoes are magical !
As an aspiring long distance runner, I have been experimenting with food- quantity, quality and frequency. Much of it guided by a simple premise that what is good for nature is also good for me. Hence, almost no reliance on packaged food at home as well packaged nutrition like energy gels etc during run. I would recommend that we follow Rujuta Diwekar and her exposition on 10 Indian SuperFoods to see the magic in traditional homemade food. In fact, home-cooked food has been a luxury that I have enjoyed throughout my life. My grandmothers (May their soul rest in peace), Mothers & now Archana are magicians in kitchen and thus I have never been an OutOfHome Foodie as great food has been sort of default at home. My grandmothers even when they had no “recipe” as such could magically conjure a tasty and nutritious meal anytime with just the basic ingredients lying around in kitchen or kitchen garden. Both of them also inculcated the habit of sharing food and thus helped me build long lasting relationships.
Let me leave you with this short clip from movie Masaan in which Pankaj Tripathi beautifully captures emotions about food , relationships and our relationship with Food.
I Love You !
Shailendra
PS- I would soon bring out Part-2 dealing with #LockDown , Covid19, Unlock 1.0 and Food Business. Stay Subscribed !
Amazing write-up sir. Got a pretty good idea about a wide array of happenings in this day-to-day scenario.
Enjoyed your write-up sir looking forward to read many so such blogs in future. And thanks to my dad that he us bought mangoes and I was able to enjoy them.