- What are some of the latest trends in the F&B domain?
Sustainability has become a primary focus for many in the hospitality industry in recent years, with hotels trying to reduce their carbon footprint. Sustainable and eco-friendly practices like using locally sourced natural ingredients, reducing food wastage are being incorporated in the F&B industry. Consumers today want to know where their food came from. Factory farming is still prevalent, but most people want ethically sourced ingredients, particularly when it comes to meat. Free-range cattle and cage free chickens are more desirable.
- What untapped opportunities can hotels explore by utilising their existing F&B infrastructure?Â
Food and beverage retail management can be one of the untapped opportunities hotels can explore. Hotels use premium products in restaurants and bars be it cutlery, crockery or glassware and if given an opportunity, consumers will be interested in purchasing items from here which will become an additional source of revenue for the hotels.
- How is the hotel handling food wastage?
Hotel waste management practices include tracking, recycling, composting and donating. It is our constant endeavour to improve ingredient purchase and storage, smart food merchandising, menu design, employee training, customer engagement, portion control, and introduce service model changes; all in the effort of improving the overall rate of managing wastage. Also, we have a robust cold storage that helps in storing the raw materials for a longer duration.
- Should hotels consider leasing kitchens for cloud kitchen requirements during non-peak hours?
We give utmost importance to safety, security and hygiene standards at our hotel. It would be difficult to fulfill the requirements of both the entities during peak hours which might result in loss of business for both. It is up-to the relationship between the cloud kitchen and the hotel and how they work in tandem to reduce altercations and ease the process.
- What about hotels leasing their F&B spaces to standalone marquee restaurant brands on a revenue-share model?Â
It is very important for a restaurant to have its individual identity, when a guest visits a luxury five star hotel, the expectation is customized and personalized experience. However, it will be a good idea to collaborate with stand-alone restaurants which is in sync with hotel’s ethos and create something out of the box, exciting and unique.
- How are training and development being taken up by the hotel for its F&B division?Â
Food and beverage needs constant overseeing and training given that we have team members join us from different educational backgrounds. A class room set-up is not enough these days to educate the young minds, there is a difference between theory and reality. The training has to be planned on the shop floor by doing many mock services, situation handling and more than anything, observance. The person in charge needs to have an eye for detail, make a note of things which are not right and the training calendar has to be built around that.
