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Tag: Sanjeev Kapoor

  • Restaurant industry can introspect and reinvent during Covid2019: Sanjeev Kapoor

    Restaurant industry can introspect and reinvent during Covid2019: Sanjeev Kapoor

    MUMBAI: The restaurant industry, just like any other industry in the country, has suffered huge losses since the Covid2019 outbreak. India’s culinary master and food entrepreneur, Sanjeev Kapoor, in a virtual fireside chat with indiantelevision.com founder, CEO and editor-in-chief Anil Wanvari talks about the spirit of generosity, lessons learnt during Covid2019 and his personal evolution. He also explains how the restaurant industry needs to reinvent itself in order to grow ahead.  

    Explaining about his work during the pandemic, Kapoor said, “In Mumbai we have partnered with Taj Group to distribute food to 45,000 people every day and same is the case in Delhi and Bangalore.”

    As people will not stop eating food, there is a significant growth in the consumption of digital content where audiences are looking up their favourite chefs to acquire cooking skills. Hence, Kapoor is keeping himself busy looking after his specialised channel Food Food and also creating content for his digital platforms where he is creating content and live shows with the help of his family members who have turned into sound and camera persons.
    According to Kapoor, reviving restaurants during this pandemic is very essential. Because people's need to eat is still there. What they will eat or where they eat may change. Which means that skills are still required. He added, “If you want to eat a rumali roti you cannot eat at home.You need skilled people to do that. I have been advising people in the restaurant industry to bring in new concepts, new thoughts to sustain and grow.  Also, this is the time to look at what was going wrong in the industry.”

    Kapoor is of the opinion that the fixed cost in the restaurant industry is very high. He notes businesses should look into compensation based on the work being done. They should create work that functions on a variable cost model in order to survive.

    The one positive outcome of the pandemic will be a chance for the restaurant business to refurbish itself.

    Kapoor feels that the restaurant industry will have to go in for some major modification in the coming future. When the business starts, it is important to let go of outdated business practices and develop new concepts, thoughts and more innovative ways to feed people.

    According to Kapoor, the hospitality industry is a very resilient sector, but going forward, will they change their traditional model of doing business? He said, “Meal kits are going to be the next big thing in the industry. We have already started our meal kits. I will include primary ingredients, a recipe card along with a cook along with Alexa, where you scan the QR code and the cook will guide you. It is about changing the model and creating opportunities.”

    Kapoor, who closely works with Akshay Patra, serves 18 lakh meals every day. The food is prepared at 50 large kitchens. According to Kapoor, the restaurant industry was not looking at sectors like that as an opportunity. Institutions like Akshay Patra have interns from top universities including Harvard and Stanford whereas top Indian colleges do not even go there. He thinks that a food service solution needs people who understand processes and taste.

    He says, “If today you want to eat Thai food at home and if you are vegetarian, you don’t want something with fish oil and shrimp paste. You want an Indian solution for that. There are many such opportunities in the market like I closely work with, such as pharma companies. Has anyone thought if medicine tasted good what miracles it would create? There are nutritional and functional foods which need to be healthy and tasty. So, many companies need that intervention. This is the time for specialists and there are many opportunities. We just have to keep our ears and eyes open. I have always advised people to look beyond the standard option.”

    About the options available for a corner-side restaurant, Kapoor said, “They are way better warriors than us. I know many people who are supplying food to a hospital chain. There will be two kinds of people: one who will fight and another who will wait. The ones who are fighting will survive and those who are waiting will also survive but they will need much more time.”

  • Wonderchef partners with Social Beat to expand their brand presence via digital

    Wonderchef partners with Social Beat to expand their brand presence via digital

    Wonderchef, one of India’s leading kitchenwarebrand,has partnered with Social Beat – a top digital marketing solutions company – to build a strong brand through the digital platform. As per the mandate, Social Beat will manage the digital communication, including videos, social media and more, across various product verticals of the brand in order to reach its target audience. Wonderchef wants to leverage digital marketing to present informative content around cooking and engage with consumers who want to upgrade their culinary skills.

    To keep up with the going-on-a-binge trend of TV shows and food consumption, Wonderchef has been focusing on putting various products from their line that help with healthy living. One of them is Wonderchef’s line of Air Fryers that help keep your binge-eating at bay. By posting relatable content on their social media pages, including one that joins in on the excitement over the return of Netflix’s TV show ‘Sacred Games’, these social posts have been a huge hit among all youngsters, garnering high engagement among their target audience.

    Commenting on this partnership and digital initiatives for Wonderchef, Panisa Shah, Social Beat’s Creative Head said, “With an icon such as chef Sanjeev Kapoor spearheading Wonderchef, which is revolutionizing the way we look at cookware and kitchen appliances, we are excited to partner with them in their digital journey. We have vibrant plans to build a healthy cookware brand digitally through creatively curated social content and engaging video formats, which will be instrumental in positioning the brand as the go-to cooking expert that makes cooking simple, tastier and convenient for everyone.”

  • Sanjeev Kapoor on FoodFood’s FTA avatar, DD Free Dish & TRAI tariff order impact

    Sanjeev Kapoor on FoodFood’s FTA avatar, DD Free Dish & TRAI tariff order impact

    MUMBAI: With the new tariff order bringing in a major change to India's television distribution, several broadcasters are adopting alternative ways to stay relevant in the ecosystem. Chef Sanjeev Kapoor-promoted FoodFood channel is among those trying to negate the impact of the new regulatory framework by converting it into a free-to-air channel from its current pay model to maintain its reach. Ahead of its 11 July FTA launch, Kapoor interacted with Indiantelevision.com to outline the reasons behind the decision and offered insights into the category his channels operates in.

    What was the objective behind taking this call?

    When the tariff order was released, we were contemplating how to approach this. We realised that we should keep it the way it was and when the dust settles, we will take the call depending upon which way the viewership is moving. We studied and evaluated what the viewership patterns are, how things are moving, what is happening in the market, what is happening to specialty content, what’s the best way to approach it and we realised that for a single channel without bouquet strength the best way is to approach it differently. When there are bouquets, no matter what the order says that this can not be done, the reality is that bouquets for large players are much simpler and easier. Whether it is through Facebook, Youtube, we see that food content consumption has gone up exponentially on digital whether. The only way to bring it at par with what the consumer needs and demands is to increase the reach and that’s why we took this call.

    What were your key observations from three-four months of tariff order implementation?

    So as we know the overall viewership has dipped, that is because the reach is not there because you aren't there. Then, how does the viewer find you? Whether it is an MSO, DTH, small LCO, how do you get discovered? In a-la-carte, when you try to educate a person, it takes time and effort and when a single channel does not have the power to fight that, then it becomes very difficult. Even in my house it took my personal intervention to get Food Food, so it would be difficult for normal viewers. So to break this resistance, one must go the FTA way. We believe it will be better now because if the pressure of paying the broadcaster is not there, hopefully, it will be better. We evaluated Free Dish as well. It format have any specific advantage for a smaller channel. For devotional channels, there is a lesser fee but for specialty channels like us it is not beneficial.

    Do you see consolidation, mergers or more channels being added in the category you are operating in?

    Difficult to say. Bigger broadcasters with 40-50 channels have their own challenges. Some of them are shutting down, some of them are rationalising. In such a case, consolidation is the most obvious choice but really we have not seen that happen yet because these are early days. For people like us, fortunately, it's not something that bothers us too much because we have over 1200 hours of high quality HD content. We have the ability to syndicate, licence and monetise through multiple ways. So we are not too worried.

    Do you have to spend more on content to attract consumers as the new tariff order puts power in their hands to pick and chose?

    I would say that even if the power is given, if the consumer cannot use it how is it going to help. You can be FTA and still not be present as the must-carry rule is no longer there. How do you ensure that? Though digital has come to the rescue but at whose cost? It’s not at the cost of content creators or at the cost of distributors. There used to be a normal camera now there are more digital cameras. There could be transitions. Three years ago when I visited the US, people were talking about cutting the cords and if that is a global phenomenon that has to come. The power of content will stay. We consider that as content creators we distribute content through different platforms and whenever consumers find it convenient to access our content, they will consume it there.

    How do you plan to monetise your content across digital?

    We already do. We have a fairly large plan on digital. So, our overall community including Food Food is over 20 million that across platforms could be Facebook, Twitter, YouTube etc. We use that community to reach out to core Food lovers. We work very closely with brands. We are launching a series on biryanis. We have Dawat Biryani Rice on board as a large partner for that.

    Do you see your revenue more skewed towards digital in the near future?

    I would guess so.

    Do you tweak your programming in terms of going from pay to FTA?

    Our focus does not change. We want to stay focused on who we are. We don’t want to really change the programming too much.

    Do you see a change in nature of your core viewer given that you are a free platform now?

    It’s difficult to say. We want to stay core to our value and we will see if in each market we have enough consumers. We want to work with all the distributors in creating something unique and special for them. So, we don’t want to change the core product. We want to give a few things which no other TV channel can do.

  • Akanksha Khatri from Mirzapur, UP wins India’s first ever digital food reality show, India’s Digital Chef!

    Akanksha Khatri from Mirzapur, UP wins India’s first ever digital food reality show, India’s Digital Chef!

    MUMBAI: Conceived and created by One Digital Entertainment with judges Sanjeev Kapoor, Saransh Goila and Amrita Raichand, India’s Digital Chef aimed at giving the country its first ever digital chef. 16 home chefs of different ages and ethnicities, went on to fight for the title of India’s Digital Chef. 

    After 15 episodes and 4 distinct stages of cook-offs, 29 year old Akanksha Khatri, won the final round against Rashmi Ahuja to win the first season of the show. The finale was a tough fight between modern vs. traditional approach to food. Akanksha’s journey on the show was quite astounding as her recipes always managed to take the judges by storm. She went on to prove herself as the fusion queen always taking risks and innovating with flavours and ingredients on the go. 

    Akansha has won a world class, high end cooking range for her dream kitchen from KRBL as well as a highly advanced water purifier from Livpure. One Digital Entertainment will now invest in her to provide her with mentoring, production and marketing support to build her own digital properties across platforms in order to pursue her dream of becoming an established chef by helping her build herself as a brand and monetise and syndicate her work with their vast experience in the industry. 

    Akansha said, “ I’m ecstatic. Cooking was my dream and now to finally be able to pursue it as a career with One Digital Entertainment’s support is too exciting. I can’t wait to start cooking in my dream kitchen, start making more delectable recipes and share with you all!” 

    Chef Sanjeev Kapoor says, “Akanksha had stunned us with her melange and combination of healthy food. Even the other contestants were so innovative with their recipes. It is heartening to see so much talent lying around in the corners of our country hence it’s an amazing feeling to be a part of this show with One Digital Entertainment and other judges to find such talented home chefs. I am quite excited to see what the second season has in store.” 

    Gurpreet Singh, co founder of One Digital Entertainment commented, “Akanksha showed real promise from the first episode and we are very happy we have found a chef as talented as her. It has been a great experience for us to make this show and we are already beginning work on season 2. Season 2 will see more home chefs coming from all over India as our goal has always been to support and invest in the best talent around.” 

    One Digital Entertainment is India’s largest digital video content network working with over 3000 artists, celebrities and influencers and also the creators of various genres of first of its kind digital format series and web documentaries that stand out in the entertainment market. 

  • Nutralite launches digital campaign for mayonnaise range

    Nutralite launches digital campaign for mayonnaise range

    MUMBAI: Nutralite’s latest campaign is an interactive YouTube video by India’s favourite master chef Sanjeev Kapoor inviting users to choose their ingredients and guide him on making the recipe. The video will have multiple ingredient options and different users could choose their own favourite ingredients and make a different version of their recipe in this interactive recipe video.

    The campaign is conceptualised and executed by Tonic Worldwide.

    Tonic Worldwide CEO and co-founder Chetan Asher said, “The spreads category is extremely challenging with brands that have deeper pockets and are well established. The need of the hour in this campaign was to ensure not just awareness of the new range but also encourage usage by showcasing recipes which are actually chosen and made by them.”

    Zydus Wellness Ltd Marketing Head Sachin Dingankar, “Many mothers love to cook, but doing that along with one of the best chefs in the country is surely a valuable experience. Using YouTube as the prime medium, the very idea of moving forward with a recipe according to the user’s preferences is unique. Along with this, the campaign has also provided a real-time picture of Nutralite Mayo’s functionality, which further drives through the impact of this campaign.”

    Sanjeev Kapoor gives the audience different choices for ingredients and the Nutralite Mayo variant that they would like him to use in the recipe seeds the product usage.

  • Nutralite launches India’s first mayonnaise with vitamins

    Nutralite launches India’s first mayonnaise with vitamins

    MUMBAI: Table spread brand Nutralite has launched India’s first mayonnaise range with vitamins. The company claims Nutralite Mayonnaise to be fortified with Vitamin A, D and E and provides 30 per cent daily requirement of the three with every serving of 15g. The completely vegetarian range will be available in flavours of cheesy garlic, achari and veg.

    Nutralite brand ambassador Chef Sanjeev Kapoor says, “Nutralite has always focused on bringing together great taste and good health. Nutralite Mayonnaise follows the same legacy. The kids will love Nutralite Mayo flavours.”

    Zydus Wellness director and chief operating officer Tarun Arora mentions, “Mayonnaise has started becoming a must have at home as kids love it. But regular mayonnaise traditionally is not associated with health benefits and hence mothers restrict its use for kids. Nutralite, known for its health credentials, identified this as an opportunity. The flavours are developed keeping the Indian palate in mind. Achari is the first of its kind flavour in this category. The other two are veg &and cheesy garlic. For today’s ‘smart home-maker’ who is proactive, creative and experimental and works towards developing her skills to minimise the daily struggles of cooking a variety of dishes for her kid while keeping them healthy, Nutralite Mayo would be ideal ally.”

    Nutralite Mayonnaise is available at all retail stores for Rs 85. Zydus Wellness has a strong presence in the sugar substitute market, table spreads and the skin care segment.

    Nutralite is a market leader in the table spread category and appeals to consumers looking for healthier alternatives to normal butter. It is cholesterol free, does not contain any hydrogenated fats and is also trans-fat free.

  • FOODFOOD announces veeba cook off powered by Daawat Basmati Rice and Tata Sampann

    FOODFOOD announces veeba cook off powered by Daawat Basmati Rice and Tata Sampann

    MUMBAI: Cooking doesn’t get tougher than this! FOODFOOD Pro an initiative of FOODFOOD, India’s premier 24×7 Food and Lifestyle channel is proud to announce an intense and exciting eleven – episode series, VEEBA COOK-OFF, a challenge, that is purely ‘By the Professionals and For the Professionals’. This high-octane 30-minute show will be a pure adrenaline rush for cooking enthusiasts.

    The objective is to find the best chefs for India’s hotel and restaurant industry. The contestants will have to beat-off their peers in an extremely tough competition by sheer creativity, skills and a determination that seriously pushes them to their culinary limits. The winner will be selected on the basis of Talent, Technique and Taste.

    What sets apart ‘Veeba Cook-Off’ from regular cooking shows is that there will be a winner in every episode as opposed to a single one every season. Each episode will feature a new set of young and talented to-be-chefs picked, after an intense talent search, from across India’s most prestigious culinary schools and they will be competing with each other.

    The judges are India’s leading authority on food, Padmashri awardee Master Chef Sanjeev Kapoor and popular host of Mummy ka Magic show, Amrita Raichand. Joining Sanjeev and Amrita on different episodes as judges include Perizaad Zorabian, Sharad Kelkar, Kunal Vijaykar, Hariharan, Anurag Katriar (Owner of Degustibus), Renuka Shahane, Rajesh Bharadwaj (owner of Junoon, An 8 time Michelin starred restaurant in New York).

    Speaking about the new series, Sanjeev Kapoor said, “The concept of Veeba Cook Off is the first-ever in India, with a twist to regular cooking competitions. A real cooking show that is ‘Of the chefs, For the chefs’, it has professionally trained Trainee Chefs competing who would be absorbed by the industry soon. The series will test skill, commitment and their ability to cook and innovate the very best food at the highest end of the culinary spectrum in a limited time.” 

    Sanjeev further added, “The twist is secret ingredients, innovative recipes, quick action and a heart filled with desire to beat the challenge. Cooking, for me, is definitely more than a job, it’s a way of life! I love to pass on knowledge to young chefs and what better than to devise a series that gets them to compete, be under scrutiny and learn from India’s best Chefs.”

    Speaking about the association, Veeba, Founder and Managing Director, Viraj Bahl said, “Our strong focus on innovation and our obsession to bring out only the best, led to our partnership with FOODFOOD to present a one-of-its-kind cookery show, Veeba Cook Off. Indian Chefs are becoming a force to reckon with globally and we are hopeful that under Chef Sanjeev Kapoor’s guidance and mentorship, we will be able to discover fresh talent who will go on to become game changers in the food industry.”

    Daawat, CEO, Vivek Chandra said, “With Chef Sanjeev Kapoor as Daawat brand’s ambassador, for almost a decade, Daawat has always been very close to the Food Service fraternity. Young Chefs are the future of our Food Service industry and they should be given enough platforms to succeed. Participation in this show is our commitment towards this endeavour.”

    Tata Chemicals Ltd. stated, Head- Marketing, Consumer Product Business, Mr. Sagar Boke, “Veeba Cook Off is a platform where professional chefs are challenged to test their skill sets. Similarly, at Tata Sampann, we challenge ourselves to provide foods that are nourishing, wholesome and retain their natural goodness & taste. We continuously strive to innovate on the delivery formats, minimise processing & offer wholesome food products.”

  • GST fails to spoil Food Food’s party

    GST fails to spoil Food Food’s party

    MUMBAI:  When largely all television channels were struggling in the aftermath of the goods and services tax (GST) implementation, Food Food channel remained insulated from all the brouhaha. Celebrity chef and promoter Sanjeev Kapoor, speaking to Indiantelevision.com, said that the channel he co-founded saw no adverse impact of the tax that has been the bane of existence of many media companies.

    The food content channel is run by Turmeric Vision Private Ltd, a joint venture between Kapoor, Astro Overseas Ltd and Mogae Consultants.

    “Bigger channels might have been impacted but not us,” he said. Food content is always on people’s minds even as male viewership has been increasing as the taboo of men entering the kitchen is fading away. “The primary viewership today isn’t always female. There is great interest from the male audience, too, which wasn’t the case earlier.”

    Unlike other content such as automobiles or sports, food is a universally loved topic. Everyone relates to it and food lovers will especially gobble it up. He said that India had three types of entertainment preferences–Bollywood, cricket and food, which wasn’t very hot until recently.

    According to media reports in 2016, the network saw an investment of around $30 million (around Rs 180 crore) and had incurred operating loss, which kept reducing year-on-year. The company achieved break even in financial year 2016-17. “We are confident that 2018 will be far better than 2017,” he said.

    Kapoor dismisses the idea of constantly thinking of improving a channel’s ratings and repackaging shows in order to ramp up viewership. Instead of calculating the impact via ratings, the channel focuses on reaching relevant homes. “If we want to be in the top of ratings chart, we will have to create the next Naagin of food and we don’t want to do that. We want to stay focussed on our content, which is more trust centred. So, the ratings are relatable for general entertainment channels (GECs) but our relevance is towards more advertisers.”

    Digitally, Food Food looks at recipe-based content while TV is all about storytelling. Although Kapoor admits that over-the-top (OTT) platforms are important, the channel doesn’t have any app-specific content yet. Instead, the channel’s social media is very active. Moreover, Food Food has associated with SonyLiv and Jio for providing live shows to the platforms; in three months, Kapoor said, the company will analyse the results and decide the future roadmap. Partnerships with two more undisclosed OTT platforms are on the anvil.

    Food Food was the first channel to go high definition (HD) in India. The channel is aware that standard definition (SD) is still more prevalent in the country and, therefore, also distributes its content in SD.

    Food primetime is 1 pm to 5 pm and 8 pm to 11 pm. Kapoor believes that in the food genre, it is not the celebrity chefs behind the channel’s success but is the channel that makes the chef a star.

    Food Food already has presence in the US (Dish Network), Canada, the UAE and Qatar and owns the IP rights to over 2600 hours of programming. It has also syndicated around 1000 hours of programming internationally to the likes of airlines, news channels in South India and to Colors in the US.

    Also Read: Chef Kapoor-promoted Food Food bolsters ops with Amagi Cloudport

    Food content dominates viewership on lifestyle channels

  • SonyLiv plans to take unique food content to 8k hrs by Sept ’18

    SonyLiv plans to take unique food content to 8k hrs by Sept ’18

    MUMBAI: Who is the first mover in the OTT space to introduce food as a genre? SonyLiv has — on World Food Day (16 October) — introduced the food genre to its existing line-up of diversified content.

    Not only that, SonyLiv is committed to bringing the best of world cuisine to its viewers and will double its exclusive food content from the existing 4000 hours, in the next 12 months.

    Giving its viewers a new level of experience of engaging with food, SonyLiv has joined hands with Padma Shri awardee, Chef Sanjeev Kapoor, Rajshri Food, a popular YouTube channel featuring renowned chefs like Varun Inamdar and Ruchi Bharani, to satiate the taste-buds of food lovers and enthusiasts alike and take them on a gastronomic delight.

    SonyLiv will feature Rajshri’s episodes spanning a duration of 5-7 minutes each.

    FoodFood, an Indian food and lifestyle TV channel since 2011, will continue its run on SonyLiv by bringing the best from the culinary world to your devices, as well as engaging discussions between Kapoor and other celebrated Indian chefs like Harpal Singh Sokhi, Amrita Raichand, Anupa Das, Ajay Chopra, Shailendra Kekade, Saransh Goila, Shilarna Vaze, Vicky Ratnani, Rakesh Sethi, Shantanu Gupte and Pranav Joshi.

    Sony Pictures Networks India EVP and head – digital business Uday Sodhi: “With the introduction of the food genre, SonyLIV is committed to engaging its viewers with the best of world cuisine curated by top celebrity chefs. We have displayed our pioneering edge by being the first OTT platform in India to introduce the category of food. It is going to be a major genre on SonyLiv, going forward, in addition to entertainment and sports.”

    Kapoor says: “Via this association with SonyLiv, I hope to repeat the same success in the digital world. Experimentation and innovation are the key pillars for any chef, and we will display the best that world cuisine has to offer.”

    Rajshri Foundation trustee Neha Barjatya says: “Rajshri YouTube channel has over 800 pure vegetarian recipes. This association will add to the richness of content available on SonyLiv.”

  • Sanjeev Kapoor launches mobile app with EscapeX

    MUMBAI: Celebrity chef, entrepreneur writer and television personality, Sanjeev Kapoor, announced the release of his new mobile app in collaboration with New York-based tech firm EscapeX. The new app will enable fans to access the Chef’s social handles (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram) and directly interact with him through the in-app social feed.

    This provides an unparalleled experience for his large fan base, who will enjoy unique & exclusive content from Sanjeev Kapoor and a personal view of his life.

    The app will provide unique features like push notifications, Featured Videos, Superstar posts, contests, Superfan badges, a subscription service, live Broadcast of cookouts, and live chat between Kapoor and his fans. Sanjeev Kapoor has been a pioneer in the Indian culinary field and has been awarded the Padma Shri, the fourth highest civilian award in India.

    “We are glad to be a part of Sanjeev’s next level of engagement with his fans & followers,” said EscapeX CEO Sephi Shapira.

    An exciting, patented feature will transform how fans interact with Kapoor by giving them the option to boost their or their peers’ comments to increase visibility and actually be seen by the star himself. By turning recognition into virtual currency, the entire fan base can trade their earned or purchased in-app currency to promote themselves and others to the top of the comments feed and become Top Fans. This one of a kind tool also increases fan-2-fan engagement, while giving users a true sense of community.

    Being completely free for fans, the app will display the same targeted advertising content users see on Facebook, Twitter and Google, with revenue going to the person who produces the content that drives people to these apps and websites in the first place.

    An artist-owned app garners the star a greater slice of ad revenue, while also scooping up data on the content fans like most and enables the direct sale of all sorts of merchandise. By creating his own branded app, Sanjeev Kapoor hopes to provide his massive fan base with a better social experience and a very interactive experience.

    “It is my responsibility to make sure that my fans and users live a healthy tasty life. Through this App I can engage with them and understand their needs better to help them live a fitter life,” says Kapoor.