Food Business in India: Most Comprehensive Guide (2020)

Food is not actually Thing or object it’s an emotion For  Indians. Food business in India Are always Boom

We love our Dishes, India is a larger County of Various Spices masalas famous for different ingredients and tastes.

Foreigners use to visit taste new foods. India is Famous For biryani to Rasgula. India has 30 Plus varieties of spices, more than  500 dishes.

Food is always being First priority for  Indians in terms of taste. the population of 140 crores plus is quite a big market For the food business.

Now I know you also looking for an opportunity so that you can Kick start your own food Chain and serve these millions of people and want to become Next KFC and McDonald.

Before that, you need to Plan your Business strategy, before you start your food business in India.

That’s why I m writing this blog! I will tell you how you can start your food business in India step by step in 2020!

So keep Calm and read this blog till the end.

What’s In it For Me?

1. Understanding Local Market to start Food Business in India
2. Finding your Right unique dish
3. Competition analysis in Food Business
4. License required to Start Food Business in India
5. Setup your store
6. Building your Usp
7. Understanding Cloud Kitchen Concept
8. Marketing and sales
9. Examples
10. Conclusion

Understanding Local Market to start Food Business in India

Before starting any businesses you have to choose a great Place and make a business model because both play a significant role in business success.

And before you launch your business you need to understand that particular area people’s, what are there needs, what they like most?

Because they are your target audience. You also need to identify and understand your audience.

Just like that before you open your shop in a particular location make sure you understand their taste.

For example ;

If you are opening your food shop in Delhi Rohini sector 3, you need to understand their people’s tastes. What are some main dishes people consume frequently? Are they most eat chilly spicy food or sweets.

To check that there is many ways :

But these  2 will more effective

1^st research

2^nd Create Survey

Research:

Find some famous restaurants and hotels in that area, go there consume their food feel the taste, and figure out  what are they adding ( masalas.) What’s the most order dish In that hotel?

Survey:

Here is another way to understand your local audience, is that create a survey form. You can create it by using google forms,  ask them some basic questions like

1. Ask their name, email, Phone no ( this will help you to send offers )
2. Ask their Demographic details like age, gender, profession.
3. What food or dish they like most?
4. How frequently they consume that dish,?
5. How much they willing to pay for their most lovable dish?
6. At what time they eat it most?
7. What are they finding a lack of their favorite dish?

These are some questions you can use to create local survey reports! This will help you to understand deeply to your target audience.

And also you can ask what competitors are doing wrong?

But how to reach this form to people?

Start with your family members and friends, tell them to fill the form.

 Every local area has what’s app groups, it’s a great opportunity to promote your survey form there.

Ya, these are techniques and tactics you can use to know better your local area and target audience.

Finding your Right unique dish

Trust me a dish can change your whole business! Can you find a dish which:

1. Insane in taste.
2. Superfast to be prepare.
3. Affordable
4. Can you push another product?

When it comes to food people don’t comprise.  If you able to crack these l points which I mentioned above your product will super sellable.

People always repurchase for uniqueness, quality, and price. Maybe in your case, that uniqueness is your dish! Maybe you provide most of the affordable and tastier meals than your competitors.

For example;

There is a biryani stall in our area who makes biriyani very tastier and also they sell at a very good price, I always go there to eat biryani.

 Why? Because I already become their loyal customer, I knew they are providing the best Briyani than other food stalls, it’s very tasty.

So always choose a fast-moving, tastier and good dish which will give you maximum potential.

Do you know any kind of dish which hidden from the market? The very rare or low percentage of people know and it’s very tastier?  Your grandmother or mother making any specific dish kind of food.

If you find out something like that, please make sure you give it a try. Sell that dish and see how many people are buying and what’s is their reaction. what feedbacks they are giving

Competition analysis in Food Business

it’s always plays a vital role in your business success.

 If your competitor does not exist in your business then probably you entered the wrong industry.

Competitors will help you to build your business plan blueprint, you can analyze what works for them what not? What peoples complains about your competitor food or dish.

analyze Your Competition before starting a food business in india

Here is Some Questions to Ask:

1. Go to famous restaurants and hotels and eat their meal and dishes and Find out what they are Adding in it?
2. What Most people are ordering?
3. What’s the people menu?
4. What makes them stand out?
5. How’s their physical appearance in and Service? ( How their staff behaving?)
6.  Are they Falstaffian their entire hotel?
7. What you feel unique?
8. What complaints they are getting?

These all points Can give you max exposure to understand your Competition.

By doing this you will able to improve better products( food /dishes ), process, service than your Competitor.

Basically, spy on your Competitor and try to outrank them.

License required to Start Food Business in india

Wait before you start you need to register your business and apply for a food license.

Again we forgetting an important thing, that is Name! What you will name your business and make sure to check the domain availability.

And also you need to register your business, You can go with the Sole properties ship and also can go with Private limited LLP ( limited liability partnership), and Private Limited. Bunch of choices.

After register, your business, work on Food license – FSSAI license by the government of India. It’s a basic license required to open a food-related business in India.

Check if there is any other local license that does exist for food business, if yes take approval from all these licenses.

After completing all these paper works stuffs then You can move further .

Setup Your food store

To set up your store you can rent it or Make it (if you already have land for that). 15× 14 will good space to start.

It will around cost you under, 5k to  10k per month( rent ). If you want to make it then it will come under One time Cost.

Install AC decorate awesomely, it comes in branding while decorating your shop. Try to make physical appearance good as much as you can.

Use your display board with logo and food photos craving to attracts more customers. As we discussed before, always choose a good location like

Near colleges, universities, Market complex. This will increase the visibility of your food shop.

Building your Usp

USP- unique selling proposition, it’s always being a differentiating factor. What you are selling or providing unique?

This is something which makes unique than your competitor.

 USP play an important role in your sales and business growth, you have to build it,

let me give you an example, you running a food store and another side someone doing the same thing near your shop, now the question raise where people will go most?

Of course who has something unique to give their customers.

Maybe you are offering foods inside your hotel with Ac or TV,  maybe your customer service is good, maybe you provide a much tastier meal than other shops.

It’s all about identifying your uniqueness.

How you can build your USP?

Here are some steps to Follow:

1. What does your customer want?
2. whats you do Well?
3. What are your competitors lacking?

These are some questions to ask before building your USP.

As we discussed in the previous Point, how competition analysis can help you just like that understand your Competitor to build USP.

See what you can improve or develop better than competitors. Maybe customers are complaining about their customer service, product Improvements.

All this will help you to build a better USP.

Understanding Cloud Kitchen Concept

Probably you wondering what is heck cloud kitchen ? Kitchen in cloud? No

Let me clear your doubt

What is cloud kitchen exactly?

A cloud kitchen is Basically a restaurant or hotel kitchen that accepts orders through an online ordering system ( app, Website) and offers no dine-in facility. They have delivery boys to deliver food to the Customer’s doorstep.

That’s how cloud kitchen work !

The concept of cloud kitchen is growing faster and gaining popularity for Indian food startup aggregators like swiggy, zomato, Food panda.

You can order meals from hotels but you can’t eat that physically by sitting in a hotel  , just enjoy that in your home.

Peoples are lazy they don’t want to go anywhere They need everything on their doorstep. That’s why these startups are successful.

You also need to use this opportunity to grow your business, just open a good website where people can order your food items and also can pay you back.

Cloud kitchen will give you some awesome benefits ;

Like

1. Less Inventory
2. Less staff
3. No big space needed
4. Light weight business model
5. Low expenses
6. Can open 24×7
7. Flexible and Accessible

It will also give you competitive advantage.

You can also list your shop in Swiggy, zomato you will get a massive number of Orders. Because they already have an existing customer base.

To make a website or app, look for a good developer in your area or you can hire from  Freelancing sites like Upwork, Truelancer.

Make easy to use and good looking for users.

Possibilities are endless.

Marketing and sales

To market your Product first you need to understand your target audience and how you can deliver them value better than your competitor.

Marketing is always being a major priority for any organization. For food business Marketing you need to think in a creative way!

Use the right social media platforms according to your business and customers, engage with them, Run adds post customer photos on your social media Handel, and tells your customers to tag their friends. This will boost your word of mouth.

Organize small events invite your customers to connect with them, share photos while having a meal. Encourage them to give good Feedbacks.

At least post one photo in a day. Frequently announce offers and discounts so that People will order more.

Although online food delivery is quite completive, you have to market your meals in a creative way.

Things you need to consider before Creating Marketing Campaign:

1. Identify the right social media marketing channel ( See where your customers hanging out)
2. Marketing goal
3. Marketing budget
4. KPIs
5.  Resources for advertising ( video, photo )

And also you need to fix your sales goal. Like how many orders you wan to fulfill until this x,y,z date.

Examples

Here are some great examples of Food chain including cloud kitchens

CCD – Café Coffee Day

India’s Biggest Caffe Chain, they operating physically as well as with the online delivery system. Valuation – 1.5 billion

Fassos

Cloud kitchen.

Valuation- 525 Million

I hope you understand the Full Concept now you Can go ahead and start your food business.

Conclusion

 Follow all the steps which I mentioned above to launch your food business. Works on quality and customer satisfaction. Always try to gather feedback from customers. Measure your KPIs and improve accordingly.

Thanks for reading this blog , I will see you on next Blog.