After having recovered from Covid-19 and going through a rehabilitation programme not more than two months ago, Padma Shri chef Sanjeev Kapoor is back on his busy feet. Since providing meals to the medical fraternity last year during lockdown, along with the Indian Hotels Company Limited (IHCL), Kapoor has now joined hands with the well-known non-profit organisation World Central Kitchen (WKC). The initiative aims at providing meals to the hospital staff, who are at the forefront of the Covid fight.
For the uninitiated, WKC was started in 2010 by José Andrés, one of the best-known chefs from the US, and its expertise lies in providing meals in places hit by disasters and other crisis.
We dialled the 57-year-old Kapoor, who wears one too many hats, to get a low-down. Excerpts…
When did you decide to join forces with WKC?
I know José Andrés for years now. It so happened that I was talking to a common friend from Washington DC about their work in the US and two days later I get a call from the director of operations of WKC, asking for recommendations on what they could do to help the people in India. I had mentioned how we were providing food to the hospitals and they liked the idea since they were doing the same in New York. Within two days we had started serving and this was possible because all the mechanisms were in place. We did it along with IHCL’s Taj Hotels group and Taj flight kitchen, TajSATS. What Tata (Tata Group) does, does it from the heart and not for the sake of it.
José Andrés Sourced by the correspondent
Within a month of starting operations, the initiative has reached a five-lakh mark…
We started with two hospitals in Mumbai — Sion and Cooper — with around 1,000 meals delivered a day. Then it was the Civil Hospital in Ahmedabad, for which I had to make some calls and within 24 hours I could connect with the (medical) superintendent of the hospital, J.V. Modi. There wasn’t a flight kitchen available in Ahmedabad so I had to reach out to Puneet Chhatwal (MD and CEO of IHCL) and they had Ginger Hotels. He put me in touch with Deepika Rao (MD and CEO of Ginger Hotels) and in less than 48 hours, we were up and running. Then came the Gandhi Hospital in Hyderabad, which is again a very large hospital. For this too, I spoke to the medical superintendent,
M. Raja Rao. Hyderabad too, didn’t have a flight kitchen that we could use and Puneet came to the rescue and gave us the Falaknuma (Taj Falaknuma Palace). We started with 1,400 meals a day. Then Delhi, Calcutta, Chennai, Goa… There has been some big donors who have come forward to help.
When did the operations in Calcutta start?
We started in Calcutta around 17 days back and till June 7, we have provided a total of 46,700 meals in hospitals like Bangur (MR Bangur Hospital) and Tata Medical (Center). Manish Gupta, who is the CEO of TajSATS also has a Calcutta connection (Manish Gupta was the general manager of Taj Bengal and area director east). I know so many people in Calcutta too. So, Calcutta was surely going to happen.
Balanced vegetarian meals, keeping the region in mind, are served in all the cities. (In picture) Lunch served at the Calcutta centres on June 11, that consisted of salad, aloo potoler torkari, moong mohan dal, pulao, paratha, mishti doi and juice. Sourced by the correspondent
With meals being provided in 10 cities currently, what’s the next plan?
As of now, I have requests from nine more cities that are pending. We have identified new cities and towns in different states and have our plans in place. We are currently covering about 35 hospitals. Our plan is to move to another location when the situation gets better in the place where we are serving already.
How important do you think “facilitating” is for a person in a position of power with resources in place?
You can use your position in multiple ways. It’s up to you to use or misuse it. I was shy earlier and wouldn’t share a lot of things about my social initiatives. But my ex-boss had told me how it’s important to say in order to inspire more people to do the same. There are many things that I haven’t shared, but the ones I have started talking about is Akshaya Patra (The Akshaya Patra Foundation) and Roti Bank. I took José (Andrés) to the Roti Bank kitchen so that more kitchens can be brought up, irrespective of Covid. I have also been associated with autistic children for a long time. When your intent is to help, you will always find things to contribute to. I don’t want to be capable only for myself but for others too. If you can’t make an impact with the kind of position you have then what’s the point? Food has given me so much and if there’s anything to do with food, I feel I should give back.
Carefully followed steps — from production to assembly, packing and dispersing — enable smooth functioning of the massive operation
You also ventured into the world of education with an online academy. Was this always on the cards?
Somebody who used to work with us and now works with start-ups, had asked me to speak to a person he was working with. They had invested in start-ups in food and education sectors and wanted my help. One was about online education. It was then that everything was going online. So, I connected Suborno Bose (CEO and chief mentor of IIHM) with him. We are now working on something for schools, which is about introducing cooking as a hobby. There’s a programme for hotel management graduates and restaurant professionals too. I am already with the Symbiosis Institute of Culinary Arts, for which I am a chair professor.
When most of the culinary-centric businesses have been down, your cookware and appliances brand Wonderchef has had a 50 per cent increase in revenue. Do you think more people depending on home-cooked meals has contributed to this?
Last year by mid-May we were in a state of panic because sales were zero. But when Amazon started delivering non-essential things, there was a spike in sales. The shift was happening because people were cooking for themselves and they probably wanted to upgrade to newer appliances. We focus a lot on the designs and have been able to have a good control over cost. We hope to keep seeing the exponential growth in the coming months.
Kapoor and Andrés with Manish Gupta, Nate Mook, CEO of WCK, and team at the TajSATS kitchen in Mumbai Sourced by the correspondent
Coming to the F&B and hospitality industry, how do you think the rest of the year is looking?
A lot of people have gone back to their native places and they may not come back in a rush. I think the difficulty will be in getting the staff back. The cost of ingredients has gone up. Demand will go up but it won’t be anywhere close to where it has been. But yes, it should be better, as long as the third wave isn’t as bad as the second one, which has been back-breaking.