#Entrepreneurship is an ever evolving journey, the challenges one faces, make him innovate and that can open a whole new market for his products. This blog talks about one such challenge we faced in our #HoReCa business and promotional tools we deployed to counter it.
#HeartyMart Enterprise is into supplies of food-grocery, spices etc to hotels and restaurants segment. Few years back we faced tough competition from well-established suppliers, as they were able to offer the products to the hotels at much more discounted pricing.
Then we were just traders and hence our competition was with other traders, who could manage to dislodge us with their access to better pricing of the same products. The strong need was then to create our own private brand, and be out of this unnecessary price war.
Here, it is essential to understand the purchase process in case of #HoReCa segment. There are two key people involved : – Chef – He is the influencer – Purchase Manager – He is the purchaser Chef is concerned with taste, while Purchase Manager is concerned with pricing.
We decided to create a private label, under the guidance of the chefs of our key clients. This strategy was to counter the unnecessary price war arising due to the trading of same brands in the same market, and also to make Chefs as our #brand patrons.
Sometimes the strategies on paper seemed perfect, but while implementing them you realise the bottlenecks. The Chefs who readily participated in the recipe creation of – #ChefkiPasand brand, showed reluctance in ordering the same.
Now the challenge was to make these Chefs our brand patron, create an event which brings them face to face with the brand. Make them realise the quality of the product and match the pricing expectations. An event to promote the brand among the cooks/chefs was hence conceptualised.
The event: #ChefkaKamaal
A cooking talent show for Chefs at a neutral venue.
A renowned Chef would lead the show.
Panel of independent judges under the leadership of the project leader. Chef to adjudge the winners.
3 winners to get a citation, a trophy and a cash prize.
We promoted the event on social media, by effectively making use of whatsapp, facebook etc. and used PR to promote the event. Chefs/cooks from more than 100 restaurants participated. They were provided by the products – Chef ki Pasand, to cook a recipe given to them by the judges.
This brought them face-to-face with the brand which we were trying to promote it to them initially. By using it in their recipe, they got the opportunity to understand and observe the taste and the quality of the product. This created a unique brand-customer touch point.
Leading caterers and names in the hospitality industry were invited in the event. This helped us to penetrate the caterers, which was a big market we were missing out in #HoReCa segment.
#ChefkiPasand – The brand which wasn’t accepted by the chefs initially, though they had a role to play in the creation of various recipes, is the most successful brand in our set-up. It has a turnover of more than Rs 5 Cr as on date.
