Snapshots of Food Industry News
All 42 of the Mega Food Parks to be operational in the next two years
Food processing minister, Harsimrat Kaur Badal said that all the 42 Mega Food Parks sanctioned by the government will be operational in the next two years. Already eight Mega Food Parks have become operational and another four will be ready for operations in another three to four months. Once all the Mega Food Parks become operational they will immensely increase the processing level of fruits and vegetables which presently is a mere 10 percent. The operationalization of the parks is also likely to boost the incomes of farmers.
The government also plans to set up 500 cold chain projects across the country so as to reduce post-harvest losses of fruits and vegetables. Out of the 138 cold chains sanctioned earlier 91 are already operational. Now another 100 new cold chains projects would be developed and would come up in next 18 months for which the government is accepting expression of interests up to 15 November 2016. Badal has also stressed on the need for establishing small agro-processing clusters at producing centres.
Sokhi to launch five restaurants under the banner of Yellow Tie Hospitality
Chef Harpal Singh Sokhi owner of The Funjabi Tadka (TFT) will launch five new restaurants with the support of Yellow Tie Hospitality Management, which is an Indian food and beverage franchise management company. The quick service restaurants will serve foods according to the segments like Twist of Tadka will be a family oriented restaurant that will serve Indian and Punjabi cuisine. Twist and Tadka operates in Amritsar and Bangalore presently but Sokhi would like to expand these to 25 outlets pan India. BB Jaan will serve authentic Hyderabadi Nizami cuisine. This sit-down, fine dining restaurant will be launched in Malls and starred hotels and presently Sokhi is targeting 10 restaurants in India and South East Asia.
Dhadoom will serve Canadian Poutine through shops and kiosks which are likely to be expanded to 100 outlets by 2019. Chika Chika will offer Indian and Chinese fusion experience and the plan is to expand to 50 restaurants. Haathapie will be a Punjabi fast casual dining experience with bar facility. The first of the Haathapie outlets will be launched in 2017 and Sokhi will take the number to 50 outlets. Yellow Tie Hospitality will not only mange these restaurants but is likely to invest $15 to 20 million in Sokhi’s projects that will begin 2017.
Heritage Foods to acquire dairy business of Reliance Retail
Heritage Foods Ltd has a binding agreement with Reliance Retail to take over their dairy business. The proposal is subject to regulatory approvals and other conditions and procedures that are customary for such transactions. The companies will benefit from the acquisition as Heritage Foods has high growth potential in its existing markets in Punjab, Mumbai and Delhi-NCR along with new opportunities in Uttarakhand and Rajasthan. Post the transaction, RRL will continue to trade in dairy products, including Heritage dairy products through its retail and wholesale channels.
RRL’s dairy business operates under two brands, Dairy Life and Dairy Pure and offers packed milk, flavoured milk, butter, ghee, curd, dairy whitener, sweets and skimmed milk powder. It had revenues of Rs.553 crore in 2015-16.
Nestle India launches Nescafe Ready-to-Drink beverages
Nestle India has launched Nescafe Ready-to-Drink beverages in three flavours – Chilled Latte, Hazelnut and Intense Cafe. These coffee based beverages will be available in 180ml packs and will be priced at Rs.30. Nescafe Chilled Latte is thick, milky, while Nescafe Hazelnut offers nutty indulgence of hazelnut and is aimed at the younger consumer. The third beverage is Intense Cafe and this has the familiar kick of Cappuccino. Nestle states that they have been in the forefront of innovation and they will continue to bring innovation to their coffee offerings in taste as well as mode of consumption. The new beverages are aimed at consumers who have an active lifestyle.
People and Placements
Food ordering platform Runnr adds senior talent
In order to strengthen organisational capabilities, food ordering and delivery platform Runnr has added senior talent to its team from Bharti Group, Uber, Facebook and Dazo. Runnr started its food delivery app in July this year.
Garima Gupta has become Runnr’s chief financial officer. She was earlier with Nxtra Data Limited, Bharti’s data centre business and Genpact.
Aadish Dhakad, an IIM alumnus, is heading the supply operations at Runnr. He comes with a diverse experience in banking, power and logistics. He was operations manager with Uber Pune where he developed scalable processes for partner on-boarding, training, quality and fraud control, and for managing payments.
Ankit Jain leads the data team at Runnr and where they solve the complex last mile logistics problems in India. He worked with Facebook in Silicon Valley as a data scientist. He has a master’s from UC Berkeley and a bachelor’s from IIT Bombay and has worked with Bank of America and Clearslide earlier.
Prabhat Agrawal is currently heading the Runnr Corporate Meals vertical in Bangalore. An IIT Guwahati graduate, he was the chief operating officer at Dazo and prior to this co-founded Pepper’s Online Supermarket.
Mohit Kumar, co-founder and chief executive officer of Runnr, said that now that they have a strong team they can concentrate on a new phase of growth.
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