Anoothi Vishal Fashions and people have strange ways of coming back. Bad pennies and lost loves turn up unexpectedly. Your mom’s shararas get back in style as ‘new’ palazzo pants. Actors make comebacks, so do writers. And twins separated in Kumbh Mela reconcile in the same or other fairgrounds.” Except this time, it is the mela itself making a comeback… The great Indian fair may have had its genesis in village grounds with travelling nautanki troupes, one-dish stalls with kulfi, chaat, faux jewellery — or such are the Bollywood-foisted images — and with scary numbers of people. But now the mela is back in circulation in a chicer avatar. “Food festivals”, which really are old-style melas refashioned, are tickling the imaginations and palates of the Indian consumer this winter and seem to have become quite the preferred F&B enterprise too. The refashioned food mela’s epicentre is Delhi-NCR for now. Half a dozen of these festivals here have kept “foodies” busy on almost all weekends since November beginning, with the New Delhi Palate Fest, arguably the most high-profile of these events, bringing up the crescendo last weekend. The tide hasn’t abated. This Sunday, you can still be part of the frenzied action at the Gourmet High Street in Leisure Valley, Gurgaon, where highlights include not just food retail but cooking sessions by celebrity chefs, including Gaggan Anand (who flew in from Bangkok to show audiences how to do his gajar-halwa flowers) . Then, the next weekend, there’s more to gorge on at a street food mela by the National Association of Street Vendors of India at the Jawahar Lal Nehru Stadium. Meanwhile, Mumbai is gearing up for what is being pegged as the city’s first “family food fest”, put together by the “Eat India Company” at the Mahalakshmi Racecourse. If you happen to be in Gurgaon on that same weekend, you could have another go at the Grub Fest which makes a second appearance in as many months. Finally, there is a “food street” curated by a food group, part of a larger Teamwork event, the weekend after. Next year, all the players, and undoubtedly more, are set to take the bandwagon to other cities, tier II ones as well as distant lands. If all this doesn’t leave you exhausted, you may like to reflect and ask: why? Why indeed has the revitalised mela become so popular? And what kind of business really does it make, for both organisers and participants? Cracking the Code Like much else in India, including fish caught in Indian waters, exported and then reimported to India at manifold the price, the mela has made a desi comeback after a sojourn abroad. ‘Festivals’, such as the Melbourne Food and Wine or the Taste of London, have been inspirations and templates. Taste of London, this year, for instance, saw 26,000 visitors, 15 of the city’s “best restaurants” with pop-ups and 150 exhibitors over five days in St Regent’s Park. In comparison, the New Delhi Palate Fest, arguably the most successful of these desi events, saw almost 100 big and small food and drink retailers participate. Though this year’s footfalls have not been made available, last year it reported 90,000 visitors across three days. Last year was the first time any such “food festival” in India had attracted such large-scale interest. What Palate did was to crack the market for more such events. Aside from managing to get some of the best known restaurant and food retail brands to set up stalls and ‘pop-ups’— each space was sold for varying sums, up to a couple of lakhs — the trump card undoubtedly was the venue: Nehru Park, bang in the centre of the city. This year, Palate’s venue shifted to a smaller area (the PSOI club, Chanakyapuri). Other “festival” players managed similar outdoor venues, partnering with real estate developers, civic agencies, private retail hubs et al. In our cities starved of outdoor entertainment, clearly these are a big draw. In essence, the model for all these outdoor fests remains the same: Find salubrious space, sell stalls or larger spaces to restaurant and F&B brands, arrange enough other entertainment to keep the crowds engaged. Thanks to social media — and sometimes mass media — partnering many of these activities, aspirational consumer increasingly looking at new food products but also “experiences” walk in. But food aside, like in any old-fashioned mela, entertainment is important too, to all the “food fests”. Palate, for instance, this year, roped in bands like Euphoria, Mrigya, Nasha and Menwhopause. The Grub Fest, put together by four young entrepreneurs with backgrounds in the music and events businesses, actually seems to have initiated this idea of basing the event on food (“because the audience for it can range from 9-90-yearsold, while for a music festival, it will be limited usually to 18-25 years old”, as one of its promoters put it) but building in music and live acts to attract a younger client base with larger disposable incomes and access to social media that helps further “the buzz”. From Vir Das to Raghu Dixit to high wattage bands, the Grub Fest featured quite a line-up, which were as much a draw as the 100 restaurant brands that made this a legit “food” fest. The entertainment on offer may differ. Mumbai’s “family food fest”, for instance, is all set to showcase not just music but mime and juggler acts and activities for children. But Who Makes the Moolah? A top chef in the country, on condition of anonymity, recalls a conversation with a friend, the executive chef of a barely-known hotel. So high was the demand for space at a particular high-profile mela that it had been sold out within just a couple of days. Unable to find a stall, the exececutive chef was ready to pay “any price” just to be there at the mela. Of course, it is important to note that the hotel had (and still does) negligible brand recall. With high footfalls, the melas are obvious go-tos for any restaurant brand wanting to engage in marketing activity. New brands can find exposure, others engage with new customers or test the market for yet-to-belaunched products. MTV Flip, a chain of cafes all set to launch later this month, participated in the Grub Fest in Gurgaon, obviously to gauge its audience. Similarly, Fat Lulu’s Nitin Datwani, who is venturing into a casual Indian brand, wanted to test the market with his new offerings. For food fans these new or undiscovered offerings can be quite exciting. But while most festivals do claim to balance the bigger retailers with “smaller” players in their curation, fact is that most are dominated by the established chains/brands with budgets to spend on marketing. Food-events entrepreneurs Mangal Dalal and Nachiket Shetye, who visited the Capital to check out three of the melas on a single weekend, observe: “We were looking for offbeat offerings but most were wellknown brands.” Even so, to have so many different restaurants retailing out of the same venue is a draw for consumers. Whether these casual walkins will translate into loyal customers for established brands is any one’s guess, but even when bigger brands participate, the hope certainly is enhanced exposure. Restaurateur Riyaaz Amlani believes that the objective of most restaurant brands in participating is “additional visibility and fear of missing out”. The last is an interesting observation because that also is a factor egging on rival groups. Few participants want to speak on record but most admit that sales is not the focus. Food sold at the melas is by no means cheap— I spent three hours during lunchtime at one, spending about `6,000 between three people sans alcohol. It is the same price I would pay at an upscale restaurant for better food quality and restaurant experience. But this does not necessarily mean profit for participating restaurants. The cost of infrastructure, hiring equipment if needed for an outdoor venue, and the cost of the space itself, does not cover costs. If the brand is not popular to start with and gets fewer walk-ins the loss can be manifold. Even for big restaurateuring companies with popular brands, the odds often don’t weigh up. Restaurateur AD Singh points out: “The set up costs for restaurants like us which likes to create an ambience and a wholesome experience doesn’t always justify the sales with rents that are charged at the fests. We feel that a percentage of sales like charged up to 15% is a good model to work with rather than large rentals which don’t guarantee profits or sales.” Singh adds: “Some platforms are ideal for new restaurants and lend them good marketing opportunities”. The catch of course is that many smaller retailers cannot afford to make these marketing spends. Instead, it is hotel-restaurant brands, wanting to fight stiff competition from standalones and in danger of facing irrelevance with the new generation of diners, that often bankroll many of these melas. They often land up paying the highest prices for stalls, unfortunately, often attracting the least footfalls, especially if their products do not resonate with the younger audience that floats into these events. There are exceptions, of course. And a good, unique or contemporary product always has takers but it is hardly a one-fit-all model. Expansion and Innovations For now, food melas are the flavour of the season. So successful have they been for promoters that they are attracting sponsors and even funding offers. Most are set to go to other cities. Palate has already gone to Goa and Chandigarh and plans Mumbai. Grub Fest is set to go to Goa and Bengaluru, and then to Mumbai and London. Amlani, also president of National Restaurant Association of India president, says: “The promoters are doing a great job, it’s a nascent industry and needs to be encouraged. It isn’t easy pulling off these events, since you’re kept on tenterhooks till the last minute by all government authorities in charge of licensing. The only thing I feel promoters need to do is better infrastructure for production areas and planning in such a way that no trace is left behind.” Niggles like power cuts (food got spoilt at one of the fests), delay in getting liquor licences, lack of waste disposal, lack of seating, and clean toilets… aside, what promoters need to focus on is the quality of food/ brands and food-centric entertainment. Some like the Gourmet High Street seem to be doing that— with an attempt to innovate. Instead of just restaurant retail, and music for entertainment, the focus here is on demos by popular chefs, family cookouts, and wine and whisky tastings (you can buy a single glass for about Rs 500 and keep tasting till you have your fill). As the melas grow, the tightrope to walk for promoters though will be between keeping these events creative, and content-focussed and following an out-and-out commercial route that we see happening with some music and even wine festivals in the country. “Curation is a problem”, says Karen Anand, food consultant, who had brought Taste to Mumbai about two years ago and who battles exactly the same dilemma with her organic farmers markets across the country. To be sustainable, the ventures need to make money — from restaurants-with-budgets, sponsors and perhaps ticket sales. But to be interesting, they will need more rigour and imagination. (The writer examines restaurant trends, food history and culinary cultures)