South Indians order more North Indian food; Pizza is preferred by both genders

The second day at the India’s largest food retail intelligence event, India Food Forum 2020, got off to trend setting path with Technopak, PwC, Nielsen and Deloitte shedding the light on the future of foodservice industry.
In the opening session – on Indian Food Service Market, Saloni Nangia, President, Technopak, highlighted some of the trends observed.
According to her, the organized sector will rapidly outpace the unorganized in this space. Even in the organised sector, casual dining is leading the way. Among the top eight cities that account of 42 percent are Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Bangalore, Chennai, Hyderabad, Ahmedabad, etc.
The top five trends observed were Foodservices and Food Retailing are exploring convergence, emergence of captive dining spaces, delivery platforms to compete in mass-to-mid play, urban consumer is becoming more homogenous, and locations moving beyond malls and plazas.
In his address, Kunal Gupta, Director- Lead, Digital Retail (E-Commerce) Nielsen India, threw some surprises.
According to him, dinner orders are 1.6x times lunch orders during the week days. During the weekends dinner orders show a decline. He attributed this to the fact that people tend to go out, more for dinner on weekends.
Eight metros are driving volumes in the online food ordering space, with south India being a clear leader with 40 percent market share. 77 percent of these are males with 60 percent being in the 18- 29 years category. Monday and Saturday show more preference for vegetarian food.
Another trend that came across every clearly was that southern cities prefer north Indian cuisine. It is the top preference in Bangalore, Chennai and Kolkata.
The Deloitte report suggested that technology will be a disruptor of the ecosystem of food value chain. Some of the major trends that are shaping the industry are Convenience to eat-out and take-away option, preference for healthy ingredients, glocalization of taste, ease of online ordering and role of social media.
Also, hyperlocal delivery, though at a nascent stage in India, offers significant growth potential.
In the its report, PwC stated that Rising Income, Underpenetrated market, Urbanisation, growing number of working women and increasing number of cuisine and format options will change the food service industry. According to them there is an Rs 30,000 Crore aggregation and delivery market, beyond restaurants that is growing at 30 percent. Cloud kitchen are a great leveler.
At the panel discussion on Future – Impact of Health & Nutrition in QSR and foodservce industry – What consumers expect. The participants included Mayank Tandon, CEO, Sanjeev Kapoor Restaurants; Sagar Daryani, Founder, Wow! Momo; Ramchander Raman, President, F&B- Innovation& QA, Coffee Day Global; Dr. Yogesh Kamat, Director, FSSAI, Western Region, Pawan Raina, Business Head, Value Dinning Business, deGustibus; Prasoon Gupta, Co-founder, CEO, Sattiviko; M. Yeshwanth Nag, Founder, TheThickShake Factory. The session was moderated by Dhiren Kumar, President & MD- India, Middle East- Griffith Foods.
Some of the interesting insights brought up by the panel were the fact growth will be based on perceptions and be driven by completely customizable menus. Nutrition foods will grow at a faster pace. The growing demand from customers for healthier options will be a growth driver in the future.