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“Compass Group is bullish about the Indian market”
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Monday, 27 May, 2024, 08 : 00 AM [IST]
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 Contract food service industry has taken shape and Compass India is on a growth trajectory. Economic growth tends to boost consumer spending, business activities, and social events, all of which contribute to the expansion of the contract food services market, said Ashwani Vohra, chief executive officer, Food Services, Compass Group India in a face-to-face interaction with Nandita Vijayasimha. Excerpts:
What are the factors that led Compass Group India to set up its Central Kitchen here?
We look forward to be invested in the future of Bengaluru. At least 30 percent of our revenues are generated from here. We work with over 50 clients, the largest number in any city. Moreover, several Global Capability Centres are housed in this city. Therefore, we will continue to stay invested here. Very recently we have made an investment in Whitefield for a Central Kitchen which is the second facility in Bengaluru and the eighth for Compass. There is also a small space for our Innovation Kitchen where our teams could can unleash their creativity and experiment with different food ingredients to come up with novel recipes and dishes.
The business of food service and support is manpower intensive; how do you cope to recruit and retain the right qualified workforce?
Yes, we are a people business. It is not easy to lay our hands on good talent and this is especially after Covid pandemic. But we are trying to address this situation differently with the Compass Skill School which will impart the knowhow on what it needs to be successful in working environment that we offer. This is a free training and the candidates where a stipend is given during the course of skill development and then taken on.
There is already a Compass Training Institute in Bengaluru, currently co-located at one of our client’s premises. But with the opening of the Central Kitchen that spans 29,000 sq. ft. There is an additional 4,000 sq. ft. to relocate this Institute which is dedicated to only train and recruit freshers. The candidates will be exposed to the requirements of soft skills which cover the gamut of hospitality basics and hard skills or the practical abilities that include output safety, environment sustainability to be successful on the job.
The company is known for servicing the Indian workforce education and healthcare space. Could you elaborate on this?
Compass operates in four sectors. One is the corporate covering India and global enterprises where we supply the food right from breakfast, lunch tea to dinner. In addition, we run their break spaces where there is a coffee machine installed with tit bits of snacks. We run their pantry programme whereby there will be a snack vending machine or a snack spread made available at the counter. The second is the industry production facilities where we partner to operate factory canteens. The third is healthcare which is a big sector for us. Collaborating with hospitals, we offer in-patient, doctors, nurses and visitors dining. The fourth is education where, for schools and colleges, we provide their on-campus meal requirement.
Eat Healthy is a mandate and what is the Compass Group strategy to device offerings across the four sectors in an age of reversal of lifestyle diseases?
We have a team of round 4,000 chefs across India working consistently to prepare and provide healthy food with the right macro and micro nutrients. This begins with sourcing the high-quality ingredients in a stringent manner. Our aim is to ensure food consumed should have a positive impact on one’s health. In addition, Compass has developed its own proprietary software where at the click of a button details of nutrients in a dish are displayed. There are close to around 3,000 recipes fed into the system for the teams to take the right call on the menu design.
How do you view the current scene for contract food services in India?
In a phase of economic growth, businesses and institutions often experience growth, leading to an increased demand for contract food services. Compass is in the services industry and in the B2B space, growing consistently in the last four to five years. Our average, our growth last year was 60 percent. We foresee that in the next 3 to 4 years, we will grow in the range of 45 percent at least year-on-year. We are bullish about the Indian market and are here at the right time to operate in the space. Economic growth tends to boost consumer spending, business activities, and social events, all of which contribute to the expansion of the contract food services market.
What are the visible trends that you sight?
Health, safety and sustainability are big on people’s mind. Consumers are well travelled and taking control of their health is imminent. Our job is to help people to make the healthy food choices. Therefore, there is an extra attention to detail on improving the choice of inputs of the food or drink they select. Consumers now look for transparency in ingredient sourcing. Global flavour is a major ask at the corporate work spaces. There is a huge focus on Asian cuisine. Korean is also picking up creating a requirement for continental food variations all underpinned with health. There is also a growing demand for healthy calorie conscious snacks and Indians are the highest snackers in the world. People seen to make a shift from three square meals. The concept of all day grazing with an acceptance for smaller portions, multiple times in a day are fast catching up.
Coming to challenges for companies like Compass, we would like to know from you how formidable is the Indian market?
Indian market is big enough to have several players. Competition keeps us on our toes to innovate and move further. Compass is well positioned and India is a strategic market. Our parent company in UK is looking at more investments here. Therefore, at the moment there are hardly any negatives to watch out for. We are working to innovate and respond to consumer which makes us well entrenched in this space. Outlook is positive for the Indian economy. From a global perspective, Compass India in terms of meals is in the top ten markets dominated by US, UK, Japan, China.
Technology is the name of the game what are Compass India’s efforts on this front?
All the offer in this market needs to be laid with technology. Tech is the next big thing on how we can engage with the consumer. We have deployed technology across our units to streamline operations and bring in efficiency. Being tech savvy helps to stay updated and innovate. Amongst the food service organisations, we are very tech savvy. For the front-end facing customers Compass has Food Book platform for workspaces to place orders from us. In the back-end, we have developed tools to ensure keeping food safe. There is a mechanism developed to record defects, go back to the supplier and ensure safe input of raw materials. There are also in-house training modules available on line for which the adoption rate is 98 percent. We’re watching out for consumers on what they are looking for. Annually we do consumer surveys to understand the unmet needs of the consumer’s taste or cuisine preference to devise our offer accordingly. There is a revolution happening in food: rising inflation, demanding consumer and need for digitisation. Fortunately, being the largest food service organisation, we can leverage economies-of-scale.
The Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) plays a crucial role in ensuring food safety standards are maintained across the country. Their efforts are essential for safeguarding public health, ensuring that consumers have access to safe food and are stepping up their game especially in the last 4 to 5 years. FSSAI has taken the right steps to make sure every operator is on his toes and does the right thing. We partner with FSSAI to try and inculcate ahead of time safety needs.
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