'Compliance burden to push more caterers out of biz'

Rassense, a domestically owned food services company that serves over 350,000 meals a day to clients such as Maruti Suzuki, Tata Motors, Ashok Leyland and Foxconn, sees the ongoing LPG crisis and high compliance costs pushing hundreds of contract food service firms out of business.

- @ SANJAY KUMAR, CEO & MD, RASSENSE

CEO & MD Sanjay Kumar tells Narayanan V how crippling compliance costs are straining the industry, even as the company reworks menus, cuts consumption and explores alternative cooking methods to manage the current gas crisis. Excerpts:

How are you managing the ongoing LPG crisis?

First, we are engaging with clients to arrive at mutually acceptable solutions. This is critical because we operate in a contractual food services business where prices are fixed for the full duration of a one-year contract. We cannot invoke force majeure since the war is not on our shores. With mutual agreement, we are re-engineering menus and cutting down on deep-fried items that consume more gas. We have increased steam cooking in our central kitchens and, in some cases, even gone back to firewood-based cooking for certain items.

We have substituted cooked food with salads wherever possible and added curd for nutritional balance. We produce about 350,000 meals a day and cannot reduce volumes. Instead, we have tried to bring down per capita consumption. At most industrial sites, consumption is typically 750-900 grams per person. We have worked with clients to educate employees on reducing food wastage and have brought it down to 650-700 grams.