Culinary Digital, a US-based food-tech SaaS (software as a service) company, is set to launch its services in India and is in talks with companies in airlines, hospitality and non-governmental organisation sectors. 

A part of the over three-decades-old Fulcrum Group, Culinary Digital offers a cutting-edge food tech platform to tackle critical issues such as food wastage and food security.

The US firm, which has over two decades of industry experience in providing the platform, has 4,700 clients who serve about two million meals a day. “The companies we work with are food contractors and food management companies. These serve school-going children, college-going students, patients in hospitals, defence service cafeterias and old age homes,” said Abhilash Krishnaswamy, Vice-President, Products, Culinary Digital.

Role of AI, ML

The US firm brings into play artificial intelligence and machine learning to not only enable automation for its customers but also help them to reach out to their end consumers to provide what they need. 

“It’s not just about what they are eating and what goes into making this. Is (the food) it something which is locally sourced? Is it something that is from a farm to the table? Is that something that has the right amount of nutrients and allergies and all the things that I’m supposed to have as in consumer? So those interactive technologies are also something that we provide,” Krishnaswamy said.  

Culinary Digital terms its efforts to enter India as a “mission to disrupt the Indian food service industry” by launching its SaaS platform customized for the market and its consumers. The company plans to increase the number of consumers its servcs to 4.5 million over the next two years. 

Krishnaswamy said, “Realising the market potential, we have made strategic investments to structure the food industry with specially tailored digital products and solutions within Culinary Digital. We are optimistic that our food tech platform and leading culinary products will help the country to achieve its sustainability goals faster.”

3 major problems

He said the company identified three major problems in the food sector, starting with the siloed nature of the business.  With the sector being the last to adopt technology, the company’s platform offered a solution interconnecting all the things in the entire process. 

The second issue it addresses is what is there for the customer and then, in turn, want to understand what they are eating. The company brings all these details digitally and lets customers know if it meets their health and dietary requirements, or contains some product that can create an allergy. 

The third aspect that the firm brings to the table is where are the clients going wrong, how are they managing the overall process, whether they have controls in place to manage food waste and ways to increase their profitability. 

It also offers inventory information in real-time with different endpoints like customers on one side, and vendors on the other side. “Our organization actually identifies and bridges the capital amongst all these three points,” he said.

2 areas of support

Culinary Digital primarily supports its clients with technology platforms in two areas. One is the back-of-the-house functionalities and the other is the front-of-the-house capabilities that will let a customer know who is eating what and which is the most popular among the items consumed.

“Our focus as culinary is not only to enable automation for our customers but also help them to reach out to their end consumers to provide that kind of the needs and the ones that end consumers are asking for, as well as providing that level of information,” Krishnaswamy said. 

The SaaS platform also uses predictive analysis as an inbuild analysis tool to help cafeteria managers to know if there will be any change in the weather pattern the next day or if there is a holiday coming so that all these will lead to a change of plans and thus save any wastage of food.  

The company’s clients have received both tangible and intangible benefits from the platform. “Some of our customers reported improvement in margins from 1.75 per cent to 3.25 per cent through waste management and revenue,” he said.

The intangible benefits have been the customers’ positive rating for the firm’s service going up to 78.5 per cent from 68 per cent between 2018 and 2021.  

Culinary Digital sees itself playing an important role in the years to come with people wanting to know what they are eating with at least six lakh people turning vegans in 2020.  

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