It's been a milestone year for Savourites Hospitality Pvt. Ltd. First, the F&B group completed 25 glorious years. And now, the company was a part of the ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup 2023 matches at the Eden Gardens, catering to thousands of spectators. Brainstormed by the popular trio Aninda Palit, Swaminathan Ramani and Chef Sushanta Sengupta, business partners of the brand, and helmed by Rajorshi Dutta (group manager, F&B services, 6 Ballygunge place catering division) and Rajeev Chowdhury (senior manager sales, Savourites group), 6 Ballygunge Place successfully catered at some boxes at the Eden Gardens during the World Cup matches. t2 caught up Rajorshi for a quick chat on what went behind such a feat.
Savourites had catered at Eden Gardens earlier too... tell us how it was catering during the World Cup?
It was wonderful and hectic. Savourites Hospitality Pvt. Ltd. catered to 11,500 people at the Eden Gardens on all World Cup match days. We have been catering for a decade at Eden during IPL but this was a different ball game with 50-over matches.
Which sections did you cater to?
We were in charge of 9,000 food packets for the police force. That included buffet, lunch, high-tea, dinner for police officials... senior level including the police commissioner. Then we also catered to the media centre, broadcasting and CAB (Cricket Association of Bengal). The buffets were laid at seven locations.
Catering to such huge numbers must have been challenging...
It was, but we had to keep few vital points in mind for a hassle-free service like vehicle movement planning, manpower planning.... For the former, vendor parking stickers are provided by Kolkata Police, eight vehicles (refrigerated) were being deployed for stadium catering. Prior planning was a very important aspect because only the approved vehicles were given entry. Since catering involves huge manpower planning, CAB gave us accreditations for 200 staff members (kitchen, service and wash-up teams). Intensive planning was required for staff deployment.
What about the menu? How was it decided? Did it have the same items on all the match days?
No, we had different menus. The menu was planned keeping the following points into consideration: It was a working meal for everyone so the food had to be light, non-spicy and non-oily. It was a multi-cuisine menu — media and broadcasting units had lots of foreigners, so keeping that in mind the menu included a global spread like Continental, Chinese besides Indian, Bengali, and Calcutta street food.
The catering also included food packets...
Yes and it was crucial. Around 4,500 packets needed to be handed over to Kolkata Police twice a day (lunch and dinner). This required a lot of effort and hard work with strict monitoring of food quality, portion quantity, time management. Menu planning for packets also require expertise — to ensure that there is no spillage. Items like yoghurt, sandesh are normally avoided as they tend to get rotten soon.
However, the most crucial part was time management. Starting from packets to the buffet lunch, high-tea or dinner, we had to ensure that strict timing was followed as our patrons were on a tight schedule.