Sep 30, 2020
Established in 1897, the Godrej Group has its roots in India’s Independence and Swadeshi movement. Today, the company enjoys the patronage of 1.15 billion consumers globally across consumer goods, real estate, appliances, agriculture and many other businesses. In fact, the company’s geographical footprint extends beyond Earth, with their projects now powering many of India’s space missions. With revenues of over USD 4.5 billion, Godrej is growing fast, and has exciting, ambitious aspirations. Godrej will always remain a good company for consumers, as it is most important that besides its strong financial performance and innovative, it has much-loved products greatly in demand by its loyal customers. Amongst Godrej’s various other enterprises, Godrej Food Trend Report is a one of a kind initiative that reaches out to thought leaders across verticals in the Indian food industry, collects quantitative and qualitative inputs that are then collated, analyzed and distilled into trends that will prevail in the forthcoming year.
Over 150 experts and thought leaders including celebrity chefs, home chefs, professional chefs, food bloggers, health professionals, media professionals, mixologists, nutritionists, restaurateurs, sommeliers, food producers, and many more, shared insights about their respective areas of expertise for the Godrej Food Trends Report 2020.
Just in recent days, Godrej Group’s flagship property – VikhroliCucina has hosted a one-on-one Instagram LIVE conversation series titled – Rise of The Culinary Explorer from 14th – 18th September, 2020 on the VikhroliCucina Instagram handle (@Vikhrolicucina). Given that almost all out of the ten trends predicted by the Godrej Food Trends Report -2020 saw acceleration during the lockdown, the series brought together significantthought leaders, Chefs, food influencers from across the country, namely Chef VarunInamdar, Chef Suvir Saran, culinary researchers ShubhraChatterjiandDebolina Ray, for a mid-year review.
Related to the above, Mithai & Namkeen Times bringsfor its readers excerptsfrom Sujit Patil, VP & Head Corporate Brand and Communications, Godrej Industries Limited & Associate Companiesand RushinaMunshawGhildiyal, Survey Designer, The Godrej Food Trends Report 2020, who was also a part of the live series.
1. What is Godrej Food Trend Report and tell us something about VikhroliCucina?Sujit: Godrej Group is well ensconced in the food industry through various brands such as Godrej Real Good Chicken, Godrej Veg oils, Godrej Appliances, Godrej Interio, Godrej Protekt, Godrej Jersey, Cartini Knives etc.
The Godrej Food Trends Report has been one of the strategic initiatives under its owned media platform – VikhroliCucina. It enables Godrej to catalyse engagement and build a community of advocates in the food industry. VikhroliCucina is a brand agnostic food publishing platform where all food enthusiasts can network, engage and collaborate. The Godrej Food Trend Report reaches out to thought leaders across verticals in the Indian food industry, collects quantitative and qualitative inputs, collate, analyse and distil into trends that will prevail in the forthcoming year. Over 150 experts and thought leaders including celebrity chefs, home chefs, professional chefs, food bloggers, health professionals, media professionals, mixologists, nutritionists, restaurateurs, sommeliers, food producers, and many more, shared insights about their respective areas of expertise for the Godrej Food Trends Report 2020.
2. What was the thought behind the Rise of the Culinary Explorer series? Sujit: With people spending more time at home during the last few months, there has been a renewed interest in family culinary traditions. Many even took to social media to share the rich culinary diversity that our country has to offer. Availability of local ingredients, further gave rise to exploration of regional cuisines and desi flavours. The idea behind the series is to connect with the ecosystem and gain a deep understanding of trends that are evolving from across the country, which would set the stage for the Godrej Food Trends Report 2021.
3. The beginning of the year seemed fruitful, but pandemic drowned the market. What was the impact of the crisis on your work and your solution to come out of it? Rushina: The global food industry has undergone a paradigm shift due to the pandemic. When we launched GFTR 2020 in February this year, nobody could have imagined a crisis like this could wreak havoc on global health, economy and industry just weeks later!
As curator of the annual Godrej Food Trend Report, I have been watching trends with mixed feelings. Dismay at the state of the restaurant industry as it grapples to stay afloat, and tempered relief to see some aspects of the food industry registering healthy growth. But just like history has shown that crisis can cause havoc, it has also shown that it can lead to positives as well. And as I begin work on the Godrej Food Trend Report for 2021, it’s clear to me that a new order of things is here and we need to embrace it. Team GFTR has curated a series of conversations to deliberate on how trends have played out in the last few months and collectively reflect on how we need to and can reinvent ourselves and our businesses, to create our space in the new order.
4. Of the trends predicted at the beginning of the year, which of them seem to have come true?Rushina: No trend exists in isolation, and there is no one top trend. Of the 10 trends we predicted we have seen ‘Revival of culinary traditions’, catalysed by the pandemic. And as mentioned earlier, this led to other trends to be expedited. ‘Longing for gharkakhana’ created opportunities like ‘Rise of the culinary explorer’ and ‘Emergence of the neighbourhood Foodpreneur’, health and immunity being in focus saw ‘No-compromise convenience cooking’ become important, growing awareness of the environment accelerated the ‘Commitment to provenance and mindful eating’, and all of these also lead to ‘Return to Traditional Fats’ (growing appreciation for the significance of our choice of cooking medium on key facets of our lives) and ‘Longing for gharkakhana’
5. Which of these trends will have an impact in the next report and your future plans for it?Rushina: As a forecaster of trends, the Godrej Food Trends Report has shown me that trends don’t exist in isolation. They are a sum of many things, often including altered classics, and can have much longer life cycles, sometimes being around for years, or even decades.
And this current scenario is an ideal example. Over the last two iterations of the report, we described a growing movement of self-discovery in the Indian food industry. The desire to learn more about our diverse culinary culture and traditions began in early 2018 with an initial exploration into Indian regional cuisines. In 2019 this grew to go beyond the broad strokes of regional cuisines and take deep dives into the micro-cuisines of India.
And this year we have seen an explosion of conversations, events, products and dining experiences inspired by micro-cuisines from specific sub-regions, communities, and even family kitchens of India thanks to the pandemic and social media! It has inspired exploration into home kitchens, brought the true custodians of Indian cuisine into the limelight more than ever before as nanis, dadis, mothers, home chefs the true SMEs (Subject Matter Experts), or sources of inspiration and knowledge of our rich culinary diversity have come onto social media to teach us everything about Desi flavours.
Which is in turn driving re-discovery of traditional cuisines, ingredients, fats like oils and ghee, indigenous vegetables, and more. And let me tell you, this trend will not ebb. Our Return to Our Culinary Roots will continue to play out in 2021. And with everything being contactless and online, digital disruption will be at an unprecedented level as every aspect o
f the industry galvanises to reinvent itself seamlessly deliver experiences, variety, quality, integrity, transparency and sustainability to the consumer at home.
The Godrej Food Trends 2020 Report promises to be an important addition to every food professional’s reading list. The report can be downloaded from
www.vikhrolicucina.com