Tips for Culinary Startups Getting More Brilliant in the Pandemic Period

Social restrictions during the pandemic put a lot of pressure on the culinary industry. However, some culinary startups have actually found an opportunity to sell food online.

Director of the Center of Economic and Law Studies (CELIOS) Bhima Yudhistira said there are several strategies that culinary startups must carry out to continue to grow and compete with other companies.

“The culinary prospect in Indonesia is bright and quite interesting, especially the cloud kitchen phenomenon, where several culinary startups can rent a shared workspace or shared kitchen. It can reduce operational costs,” he told Bisnis, Monday (13/9/2021).

He explained that many entrepreneurs have emerged in the food and beverage sector because people tend to reduce their shopping for clothes and travel. Instead, shopping needs are allocated for basic needs such as food or drinks.

Startups Must Have a Strong Strategy to Get Investors

In fact, several culinary startups also often get the spotlight because they get a number of funding. But to get fresh funds is also not easy. Before investors or venture capitalists inject funds into startup companies, they will first see how the business prospects of the startup are.

Therefore, Bima suggested that start-up companies must have a strong strategy to survive and continue to shine in the pandemic era. Starting from paying attention to trends, innovations, massive marketing such as using social media or joining events and exhibitions.

Then, culinary startups are also still spreading promos or discounts. For example, collaboration with digital wallets, banking or with other digital platform companies.

“Culinary startups must demonstrate that they are able to compete in the market, for example showing whether there will be a significant increase in market share. Or there are differences that can be the main key when competing with competitors that have existed before, “concluded Bhima.

Delivery Fees are the Key to Winning the Competition

Head of the National Application Industry Division of the Indonesian Telematics Society (Mastel) M. Tesar Sandikapura said culinary startups must be able to reduce the cost of delivery services so that they can continue to exist in the pandemic era.

“Startups in food and beverage sector must incorporate new things from their services. If you only focus on food, the model will not be attractive. The delivery service driver costs a lot, culinary startups must be able to reduce that number. If you can’t, then the company will not be profitable,” he said, Monday (9/13/2021).

According to Tesar, if a culinary startup does not have a delivery service, it will make the company lose competitiveness. However, when a startup already has a delivery service, it will make customers inevitably have to add high costs.

According to him, the position of culinary startups in Indonesia is currently still difficult to compete with GoFood or Grabfood. For this reason, he said there needs to be innovation and cooperation with delivery services so that culinary startups can survive.

Trends in Ordering Food Online Predicted to Decline

We Are Social and Hootsuite’s reports, last year, there were 37.34 million Indonesians that ordered food and beverage through online food. However, he underlined that this trend of ordering food online will decline.

However, that does not mean it will decrease drastically. The reason, when viewed culturally, Indonesian people prefer to eat out. Due to the pandemic, ordering food from home is inevitable.

“This trend is because people are afraid to go out. You can’t order food on the street during PPKM or other regulations, so ordering food digitally is the main choice,” said Tesar.

Most recently, Traveloka has entered the food delivery business through Traveloka Eats Delivery. COO of Traveloka, Alfan Hendro said the company partnered with tens of thousands of restaurants in several big cities in Indonesia.