What transformation does the food-tech industry is looking at in 2023?

The Foodservice industry in India has been growing in the last two decades, primarily driven by the entry of multinational food brands in India. Some companies have taken aggressive growth routes, especially in Tier I and II cities.

Most of the brands started their journey in the last 7-8 years and are looking at expansion at 2x speed with every passing year.

While Chian QSRs leads the market share with an occupancy of ~54.2%, standalone or small chain brands with 2-3 outlets are also making their space in the markets since it’s easier for them to open and scale because of fewer complexities in hierarchy and decision making. This suggests that the food service market in India is expected to continue to grow in the coming years, and food tech will be one of the major drivers. While the new tech solutions would keep coming while the available tech will keep evolving and getting better like:

• Self-service kiosks: The use of self-service kiosks in restaurants is becoming more common across India. This enables contactless and frictionless service and makes it easier to capture data and loyalty enrollment and Improve order accuracy. This gained popularity during the pandemic, but we can already see restaurants doubling their kiosks or going digital.
• Restaurant Management Platforms: POS software is well used in restaurants and QSRs, especially since these solutions sync inventory and commerce flows with multiple services simultaneously. These solutions will keep getting better in the future with the latest features. Now restaurants can verify the payouts they receive against actual sales on aggregator platforms. Some solutions can help create purchase orders, enter inward stock receipts, manage stock transfers and add wastage, giving you a full view of the entire supply chain.
• Incorporation of artificial intelligence: Artificial Intelligence will play a significant role in making existing technologies more intelligent. For example, while supply chain software will maintain inwarding in the quantity of raw material and track usage, image detection technology can help ensure incoming material is fresh enough to be accepted. Similarly, some solutions can ensure that the food is cooked well enough to be served to the customer in terms of weight, color, and ingredients.
• Automation of cooking processes: With time cooking process will be highly automated to avoid human judgments that might compromise the consistency of the food. The automation will become part of restaurants’ equipment regularly, be it frying, tossing, grilling, or roasting.
• Centrally Connected Machines: Additionally, the technology will be a powerful tool to standardize kitchen operations. Things like centrally connected machines will regulate various aspects like kitchen fraud, preventive maintenance etc. For example, suppose a kitchen notices many complaints about the under and over-cooking of food items with centrally connected machines. In that case, one can immediately check if each cooking cycle followed the SOP. Similarly, many times, machines might show some errors, but we all believe in shutting down the device and starting it again and wow, it works. However, your staff might ignore it, but your tech provider will immediately get in touch with you to correct it before it becomes a showstopper.

Ultimately, the food service industry is constantly evolving, and food-tech players are all set to serve them with the ever-evolving requirement.

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