How you can support India’s restaurant industry
These initiatives by and for the F&B industry are aimed at consumers who want to help the industry and its partners survive its moment of crisis
Restaurant businesses have run cold. Last week, Rajesh Sawhney, the founder of food tech platforms such as InnerChef, Healthie.in and KetoGarden.in tweeted: “Only 40% of licensed restaurants in South Delhi have applied for license renewal. Only 25% apply in North Delhi. Across the country, the biggest employment generator has collapsed to 25-30%. Brutal!”
The numbers are a stark reminder of the dwindling restaurant economy plagued by job losses and salary cuts. As a remedial solution, multiple food-related platforms are offering rescue packages to help businesses as well as their staff; be it kitchen, service or housekeeping.
If you miss Sunday brunches at your neighbourhood cafe and Friday nights at your favourite bar, here’s how you can pitch in.
Rise for Restaurants by National Restaurant Association of India (NRAI)
NRAI represents over 5 lakh restaurants across India and it has been actively working to safeguard them with several measures. One of them, called Rise for Relief (r4r.nrai.org), is a virtual cash program aimed at diners. You can buy virtual cash or vouchers of member restaurants worth Rs 1000, but valued at a marked-down rate of Rs 750. The complete payment is divided into two parts—pay Rs 250 now and Rs 500 later when you dine-in at the restaurant whose voucher was purchased. Apart from this, they have a relief corpus, Employee Relief Fund, for accepting donations on their website nrai.org.
Support for bartenders and hospitality professionals campaign by Indian Flair Bartenders Association (IFBA)
IFBA is a non-profit organisation representing bartenders. In July, they set up a donation drive for not just bartenders, but also hospitality staff in housekeeping, kitchen, administration and other departments vital to the hospitality industry. They are accepting donations on their website and the money will be used to pay staff salaries.
A social media challenge for charity by World’s 50 best Restaurants
World’s 50 Best Restaurants is an annual event that ranks restaurants based on the opinions of their internal academy comprising chefs, food writers and experts in the hospitality industry. They have launched a few fund raising initiatives under the 50 Best Recovery programme. One of them is an ongoing social media challenge #50BestRateMyPlate that ends on August 21. Participants need to purchase the charity e-book and recreate a dish from it. There will be two winners who will receive VIP passes to attend the 2021 edition of the awards at Antwerp. The 2020 edition of the awards has been postponed.
Hunger Savior Covid Relief Fund by Swiggy
In a bid to support delivery staff, Swiggy announced the covid relief fund. Swiggy’s co-founder and CEO Sriharsha Majety has committed 50 percent of his annual salary towards this fund which aims to raise a corpus of Rs 10 crore.
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First Published:10 Aug 2020, 10:06 AM IST
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