The market is growing at a tremendous rate and the varieties of ingredients used by the chefs are leading to an increase in prices.

In the fourth BW Hotelier F&B conclave held at Andaz Aerocity, Sourish Bhattacharyya discussed about curbing the ever-increasing prices of products in one of the sessions titled ‘The Importance of Sourcing: Supply Chain, are we getting better?’. The eminent panellists for this session consisted of Manisha Bhasin, Senior Executive Chef, ITC Maurya; Vivek Bhatt, Executive Chef, JW Marriott Aerocity; Arun Sundararaj, Executive Chef, Taj Mahal Delhi; Amit Lohaji, Founder Director, FIFI; Puneet Jhajharia, Founder & Director, Crop Connect; Anand Ramanathan, Partner, Strategy & Operations, Deloitte India and Mohit Balachandran, Country Head, SodaBottleOpenerWala. The session was moderated by Sourish Bhattacharyya. He started the discussion by asking the panellists how this pricing question can be settled.

Jhajharia appeared very optimistic while stating that with the development of IT and startups, the cost of products is going down. “60 percent price drop in the products is because of the infrastructure development” he added. According to him the habit of comparing Basmati rice with hand pounded rice gives people the feeling of hike in prices.

The panel then shifted its focus towards the future of import market. Elaborating about this, Lohaji said, the market is growing at a tremendous rate and the varieties of ingredients used by the chefs are leading to an increase in prices. He further stated that only 200 metric tonnes of almonds are produced while there is a demand of 1000 metric tonnes which ultimately necessitates import.

Carrying forward the discussion Bhasin stated that there is a need to educate the masses about ‘goodness of food’. Furthermore, she added that the movement has started and is going the right way.