Craving Some Biryani
Biryani, a complex
slow-cooked dish, has unseated staples such as pizzas and burgers to emerge as
the unlikely champion of India’s fast food landscape
When you think of ordering fast food, a pizza or a
burger tend to be the obvious choices. A kebab, tikka or a roll might make the
cut for Indian dishes.
Biryani has always been the anti thesis of fast food.
It’s associated with special occasions and memories of overnight cooking by
khansamas using secret family recipes to achieve the perfect aroma and tender
meat. It was also served with a generous sprinkling of family history and
folklore.
Over the last few of years though, as food delivery
apps, quick-service restaurants and take-away outlets have begun to dominate,
biryani has emerged as an unlikely champion of India’s fast food scene,
unseating the pizzas and burgers that used to dominate standardized fast food
kitchens.
Food delivery apps say it’s among the most popular
dish ordered and its demand far surpasses the western imports. Online delivery
app Swiggy found that while pizza was the most searched item around the country
in 2017, biryani was the most ordered. Uber Eats found biryani to be the dish that
everyone wanted to start their New Year with. It was the most ordered dish on
January 1. On the day of Wimbledon and FIFA World Cup finals, Zomato found
biryani to be the star performer. Orders for biryani were twice those of pizza.
And these trends are from across the country.
TS Srivats, VP of marketing at Swiggy, says biryani’s
dominance is unchallenged. “Through our order analysis, we have found that
biryani is the most popular dish across South, East and West regions in the
country and stays strong as the ‘most loved dish’ on Swiggy,” he explains.
“Hyderabad and Bangalore emerge as the biggest fans of chicken biryani, raking
in the maximum number of orders. In fact, Hyderabadis ordered biryani even for
breakfast. It is also one of the most ordered dishes on Swiggy late at night
post 11pm as well.”
With food lovers showing insatiable appetite for the
complex dish, entrepreneurs serving different varieties of biryani have entered
the fray. Paradise, Behrouz Biryani, Charcoal Biryani, Biryani Blues, Biryani
by Kilo and The Biryani Project are among the ventures trying to feed the
craving.
While some, like Paradise, are well known restaurants
hoping to cash in on the trend, a slew of biryani start-ups have also emerged.
Many founders have no background in the food and beverages industry, but
customers love their fare nonetheless. Vishal Jindal, a venture capitalist at
Carpedium Capital, was at the helm of PE infusions in the food and beverage
space throughout his career. He always wondered if pizza and burger chains
alone can touch a turnover of ₹3,000 crore
nationally, then why would even the top Indian food chains struggle to achieve
a revenue of even ₹300 crore.
Vishal saw biryani delivery as a lucrative field where the rentals and
investment were lower and the business model easily scalable. He quit his job
and founded Biryani by Kilo, a delivery outfit, with Kaushik Roy, another
venture capitalist.
“The only focus was to standardize biryani making to
the level of pizza making so that each dish would have the same taste. A major
focus was to get a world class kitchen, ensure it is delivered fresh by cooking
each order individually and work out on each order’s economics to make it a
viable business proposition,” said Jindal. An IIT graduate, he said rather than
working on one cloud kitchen and serve the entire city, he knew in order to
deliver fresh taste, he had to set up multiple cloud kitchens to cater to
different areas and be able to deliver biryani handis within the shortest
possible time. From taking a year to open two such kitchens, Biryani by Kilo is
now in the process of setting up a kitchen every month. It has raised ₹10 crore in investments and is
touching revenues of ₹25 crore
within three years. “Biryani delivery will be a $4 bilion industry in the next
four years. It is one of the fastest growing segments,” he added.
From humble beginnings to being actively pursued by
investors today, the journey of biryani delivery brands hasn’t been a cakewalk
though. Raymond and Aparna Andrews, a couple who left their stable financial
services jobs, say while they did foresee the model to be scalable, opening
their first Biryani Blues outlet was not an easy task. The Hyderabad couple has
now built a steady brand that has 25 company-owned outlets cross Delhi and NCR
and plans to take the number of outlets to 60 by next year.
Adit Madan, the entrepreneur behind The Biryani
Project, experienced a set back right at the start. He left his job, researched
on the business model, and just as he was about to launch, his chefs left. “I
had to learn how to cook the biryani myself. I knew it had to be a fresh
preparation as our endeavor was to make a mark with authentic dum preparations.
A year went into perfecting the art of making the right biryani,” he explains.
What is leading to the popularity of these biryani
startups is the quality of biryani they serve, says Rohit Aggarwal of Lite Bite
Foods, which runs a number of restaurant brands, including Punjab Grill. A
self-confessed biryani addict, he says some of the delivery options he has
tried are genuinely good products. “You either had street side joints or
top-end and home cooked biryani options.
These delivery options have bridged that gap. From
finest of rice variety, best ingredients, world class cooking techniques to
personalized packaging, these services were the best that food lovers could
have asked for,” he says.
Noticing biryani to be a top seller at his brand
Street Food by Punjab Grill, Aggarwal, too, started home delivery in February.
Soon he noticed that his outlets in malls couldn’t cope with orders. Being
present in multiple cities across the country, Lite Bite Foods discovered
biryani delivery to be a gold mine and are sprucing their cloud kitchens and
setting separate lines in commissaries to be able to cater to the biryani rush.
Amin Ali
ETM 5AUG18
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