Starved for their staples, B2B food suppliers develop an appetite for consumers

With all the ingredients—robust supply chain management, industrial kitchens, third-parties for delivery service—in place, a post-pandemic B2B food sector took the leap into B2C territory. The ingredients alone aren’t enough, though; the challenge lies in melding them together into the perfect dish

The wider hotels, restaurants, and catering (HoReCa) space, projected to be worth $754 billion by 2022, was left reeling by the pandemic

The companies catering to the HoReCa segment have had to quickly figure out alternate streams of revenue

By selling directly to customers, B2B vendors are now competing with the very businesses that they saw as customers earlier

Multiplying revenue streams is a good strategy, but will the B2B industry be able to navigate the muddy B2C waters?

Eighteen-year-old Bakers Circle went into 2020 with a solid business in hand. The Delhi-based bulk bakery and confectionery supplier boasted a client list consisting of the most prominent names in India’s fast-food space. Everyone from Domino’s to KFC and Subway. With 70-80% of its revenue coming from these big chains, it had both predictability and scale.

Then came the pandemic, and both vanished in an instant. As India retreated into a lockdown, Dev Lall, founder of Bakers Circle, says orders from its fast-food stalwarts fell by 95% by April.

Gurpreet Vohra’s journey in India’s business-to-business food space is even longer than Lall’s.

AUTHOR

Bhumika Khatri

Bhumika covers e-commerce, consumer internet, and everything startup for The Ken in Delhi. In her previous stint at Inc42, she spent two and a half years writing about a breadth of startups and topics. A commerce graduate, Bhumika completed her postgraduate in journalism from the Indian Institute of Journalism and New Media, Bengaluru. You can reach her at [email protected]

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