The Covid-19 crisis has brought in several changes to human lives. The way we lived and the way we did business changed altogether. As if the first wave of the pandemic was not enough, the second wave is here and we are looking at a third one. The changes that the first wave of the pandemic brought upon us are here to stay if not worsen.
The lifestyle changes brought about by the pandemic has raised the level of fitness awareness among the people. Men and women have become more conscious about healthy lifestyle, healthy eating and maintaining fitness in general. Street foods and junk foods are no longer the ‘in’ things. Therefore the rise of awareness about health food has risen. This combined with the massive losses faced by the restaurant industry and slowing down of capital movement has given rise to a new kind of food business- the health food cloud kitchen franchise model.
While the Covid -19 pandemic raised serious concerns about social distancing and hygiene in general. Among other things, the demand and consciousness for healthy and hygienic food rose to a significant degree during this crisis. Moreover, the prolonged confinement to indoors has put an additional emphasis on the question ‘how to maintain health and fitness during the pandemic and in general.’ Perhaps the awareness about health and fitness among the masses is at its all-time high.
Businesses all over the world have seen a severe slump owing to the Covid-19 crisis. Millions of businesses have shut down. One of the segments that have faced the biggest blow is the restaurant business. It is one of those segments that are directly affected by the crisis. Thousands of restaurants have been shut down all over the world and India is no exception.
While the crisis has shut the doors of opportunities for many, it has also opened the doors of many new ones. While many established players found it difficult to cope with the imbalance between slump in sales/footfall and the operating expenditures, it was an opportunity for smaller players with a lean models of organisation and much less operating costs to survive despite making smaller profits because their operating expenditures were also low. Most importantly the budding entrepreneurs do not have to waste a lot of valuable time in establishing their business or brand if they take up franchise of an organisation that does all the brand building. The franchise model and especially the cloud kitchen model have, therefore, been seeing a rising popularity. When you apply this model to the health food segment, it becomes a formidable mix since the health food segment has seen not only a rise in demand and awareness but also a whole new generation being influenced by this awareness. This generation can be one of the first of many such generations of customers for the health food segment.
Many such health food startups have come up across the world in the recent times. Many industry leaders believe that the health food franchise model of business will see a bigger surge in the days to come.
In India, even in smaller cities, several such health food startups have sprung up based on the franchise model and they are spreading fast. The StayFit Kitchen, for example, is a health food startup headquartered in Guwahati and it has not only spread to various cities like Shillong, Agartala & Aizawl across Northeast India but also to the metros like Bangalore. They are also planning to expand to metros like Mumbai and Kolkata and cities like Bhubaneswar, Jorhat, Dibrugarh, Dimapur etc. What is the secret of their success?
“With the sudden rise of health awareness because of Covid-19, people have become more conscious about their diet and lifestyle. They want to remain healthy and fit and are looking for platforms that can provide the diet as per their requirement and can deliver the food at their convenient time and place. But unfortunately there is a huge gap between the demand and the supply. We at The StayFit Kitchen are growing rapidly and during the Covid period only we have added three more new cities in our bouquet and we are trying to fill up this gap by opening more centres in coming days.” Says Sunil Kakoria, founder of The StayFit Kitchen.
The investment in a cloud kitchen franchise is significantly less than that of a regular restaurant. This is one of the major factors that provide a sense of security to the budding entrepreneurs at the time of a global crisis like the Covid-19 pandemic. And when it comes to health food franchises based on cloud kitchen models we can safely say that in the coming days this can be a major game changer for the budding entrepreneurs.
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