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Since 2013, Purnabramha has been serving high-quality vegetarian Maharashtrian cuisine. Despite setbacks caused by COVID, the restaurant chain is flourishing and continuing to expand. Currently operating in three cities – Bengaluru, Thane, and Sambhaji Nagar, the restaurant has ambitious plans to set up new branches across India and abroad. In an interview with Kitchen Herald, Founder Director of the chain, Jayanti Kathale, discussed a variety of issues. She elaborated on the future plans for Purnabramha as well as measures taken to ensure the quality of food.
She also expressed her displeasure with food delivery services and why she has a poor opinion of them. Here are the excerpts from her interview.
Kitchen Herald: Having started in Bengaluru, you now have functioning branches in two more cities. Which other cities are you looking to expand to?
Jayanti Kathale: We currently have functioning restaurants in Bengaluru, Thane, Sambhaji Nagar, and we are planning to restart in Pune. Then, there are plans to open branches in Nagpur, Dublin in Ireland, and Qatar. Soon, we will be starting a branch in London also Delhi and Hyderabad are on the radar, the latter city definitely. And in Mumbai, we plan to start many branches. Currently, we are in the stage of restarting our centers. Earlier, we had 39 centers running, including many outside India. So, we will start all those locations first, and then we will move ahead with other locations.
In the meantime, we have started a project called ‘Highway Purnabramha’. There are about nine national highways where we will be opening our centers with facilities for a 400+ running crowd. Every highway linking Maharashtra with the rest of the country, we will like to start a center on. That is a big project and we are looking for some franchisee investors for that. Once we get them on board, we will move forward on that project. Another thing about our system is that many of our branches were under the leadership of women and we give preference to having a lady in charge before moving ahead with the whole team.
Can you tell us about the franchise model you have in place?
We have a ‘co-co’ model, where both the franchisee and the company operate. So, the franchisee owns the franchise but we run it. We give them the revenue share out of our sales but we run the show.
What is your process for training the chefs and employees of your restaurant?
We provide a three-month training to the staff before they join. Without that, we don’t allow people to go directly to our centers. Even if somebody has the experience of working at a five-star hotel, still he has to go through the training. For those who are well-qualified and trained, the training is not three months but a crash course for one month where we enable them to understand how we execute our processes. After the training, the staff is sent to the centers.
But rest of the setup is entirely managed by the top management, from our vendors to the offers we give. So, if there is Ram Navami coming up, we decide what type of prashad will be made, how much will be sold, and how much will be given away. All those decisions come from the company head.
How has been the response to your various centers? Do people take quickly to the vegetarian Maharashtrian cuisine that you serve?
See, we have been running this chain for over a decade. The response is tremendous. Whenever there is a festival or a weekend, we get a large crowd. People are fed up of having overly salted, artificially colored, poor quality food. Here, for instance, they get high-quality Puran Poli with pure ghee.
We also conduct a lot of activities at our restaurants. For instance, if in the month of March, when exams are taking place, somebody who can recite a mathematical table will get a discount. Or if you tell us the constitutional work rights for women on 26th of January, you will get a discount.
Then, we have a lot of Balgopal (children’s) activities also where children get busy with them and leave the mobile screens for that period. We do not use soda or artificial colors or preservatives. We use only traditional ways to make the food crispy and colorful, without using artificial coloring substances.
Are non-Maharashtrians as receptive to the cuisine you serve as Maharashtrians?
There are actually many dishes which people, even in Maharashtra are not aware of. Those are dishes that have gone out of fashion and are in the pages of history now. So, we have brought all those dishes back as part of our menu.
Then, people who don’t know about Misal Pao in Bengaluru, we help them understand. Even foreigners come to our restaurants and, among other things, enjoy our seating arrangements. Even from Russia, where Indian students go for medical training, the coordinator of the Indian Consulate contacted us. We have a meeting with them in May. They are asking us to set up a branch there and have said that they are ready to provide funding for that.
Can you tell us about this policy of promoting female leadership in your restaurants?
Many of the ladies who had stopped running our restaurants during COVID are coming back. I think that is my success. I have given a lifelong connection to them with Purnabramha and marathi food.
What has been your experience with delivery apps like Zomato and Swiggy?
I don’t know whether I should say this but these creatures, having been created by us, are now eating into the fruits of our hardwork. If I have it my way, I will close down Swiggy and Zomato and start delivering ourselves.
We want to do direct delivery through Dunzo and such apps. Because we are fed up with their content management system and might just tell them that we don’t want to partner. They stress us out completely with their content management requirements.
Can you elaborate on the problems with Swiggy and Zomato’s content management?
For example, if I haven’t purchased an ad on Swiggy, they will tell me that our name will not be listed. If they don’t have riders, they show our restaurants as closed. If my restaurant is working, why should this be the case? There have been occasions when we saw this and called up the restaurant to ask why it is closed. The center manager replied that the center is open and Swiggy and Zomato are also kept online, but still it appears closed online.
There are so many issues that I can point out. At times, the food is ready but the agent doesn’t reach us on time. The entire penalty is imposed upon us when they are unable to pick up. We highlighted this and talked to their representatives and they told us to improve our own performance. We retorted that our performance isn’t what needs improving.
Also, I should decide when I keep my restaurant open on Swiggy and Zomato. If we have a heavy load on our dining services, why would we take delivery? And my higher-end value items on the menu are sometimes closed down by them without informing us. We have taken so many screenshots of such poor content management and have shared it with these people. The people behind these services have used their mind for their benefit.
If everything is about financial value and not about the social value, then I must say that we should not partner with them. But the problem is people have become addicted to Swiggy and Zomato. They just have to press buttons on the phone and the order is there. They don’t understand the problems we face, but they will complain if the food doesn’t reach them. They don’t necessarily care about the restaurant. If it closes down, they will go back to Paneer Butter Masala from some other place.
We have had to close down our center in Kharadi, Pune, because of these reasons. I get 100s of calls everyday enquiring as to why that center is closed. It’s not just frustration on my part but a factual reality. I have seen so many restaurants open and close because of such issues with content management.I was talking to a person who is doing good business but is earning no money. These people have to look at the exorbitant share of earnings they are cornering. 48 percent! My food cost comes to 27 percent, if you take 48 percent, what is left? On top of that, we have to deal with penalties. So, that’s why these people are not great to work with. They know how to raise the financial value but not the social value.
Tell us about your sourcing of ingredients.
We have a single vendor system where we designate one vendor for supplying us a particular product and only source that product from him. For instance, if we want Kharwas (traditional Maharashtrian milk pudding), we will always get it from the same vendor every time. If we want spices, we get them from the same vendor who is designated to supply those to us.
Also, we operate on a system of zero preservation. Every week, new supplies come in. This applies to groceries also, such as rice, flour, pulses, oil, etc. We are even trying to get our vegetables from the same vendors every time.
How do you ensure quality control?
We conduct an audit every three months, to ensure that no wrong products are being used. After all, it’s a human intervention. So, there is one audit every three months in India and one every six months abroad.
