F&B outlets hire extra hands for extra-busy Deepavali

Contractors, catering agencies and colleges provide temporary staff for the busiest season of the year

Major sweet brands in Bengaluru have hired extra workers to cope with the Deepavali rush.

The interim staff are mostly sourced from contractors, catering agencies and colleges.

Asha Sweet Centre has 16 branches in the city and over 600 staffers. Additionally, it has hired about 15 people for cooking, 120 for miscellaneous work in the kitchen, and 170 for packaging, and some engineering interns to oversee technical execution.

Partner N Mayur Garg says, “We get soan papdi makers from Uttar Pradesh and Mysore pak specialists from the southern states. Our manufacturing unit is in Goraguntepalya, so we have outsourced the job of arranging sweets in boxes to women who work in garment factories there.”

Their kitchen staff arrive over three months in advance while the packaging and delivery staff come 10-15 days ahead of Deepavali.

Anand Sweets and Savouries, which has 15 stores in the city, sees a ten-fold increase in sales during the Deepavali season. The brand has, thus, roped in 100 more people this time, mostly for production and packaging at their factory, says director Arvind Dadu.

“We bring teams who specialise in cutting and decorating mithais from Rajasthan and West Bengal. People who shape laddoos come from Uttar Pradesh. We plan out these things six months ahead,” he says. Baklava, a pastry dessert with Turkish origins, has been their top seller this season.

The F&B sector faced acute shortage of workers through peak Covid but that hasn’t marred seasonal hiring, notes Vishwanath Murthy, owner of India Sweet House. That’s because sweet brands rely on long-time connections, which comprise contractors, and families who have worked with them generationally, especially as confectioners.

“We have 10 branches in the city and we have hired at least 200 casual labourers. When it comes to cooking, recipes are fixed and they just have to execute them,” says Vishwanath.

The other side

Business isn’t as brisk for the Outdoor Catering (ODC) providers Metrolife spoke to.

Monohar V Rajpurohit, owner of Rajwadi Caterers in HSR Layout, says he has supplied about 20 part-time workers this Deepavali against the pre-pandemic numbers of 700 to 800.

“We lend people to small caterers who take bulk orders for mithais from agents and retail shops. But many small caterers went out of business during the pandemic,” he explains.

Paul Subhakar, proprietor of Purple Plate catering, located in Veeranapalya, struggles to find gig workers ahead of big festivals as people go back to their hometowns. So he hires students and pays them “a premium” during such times, one-and-a-half times the regular remuneration, that is. “We approach engineering or PUC students who don’t come from well-to-do backgrounds,” he says. This time, he has enlisted 30 people for Deepavali parties at apartments.

Restaurants in the race

Unlike sweet shops, Deepavali is not a peak time for restaurants. People leave the city for vacations and stay home for get-togethers, resulting in fewer walk-ins.

“We see only 10-15% increase in business, at fine dining outlets especially,” says P C Rao, president of Bruhat Bengaluru Hoteliers Association.

Still, a few F&B outlets are boosting their workforce on a need basis albeit in fewer numbers.

This week, JustBe Resto Cafe, Sadashivanagar, added two men in the kitchen and two in the packaging department to prepare hampers. “We were packed last weekend. I thought people would have gone out of the station,” says founder Nidhi Nahata.

Rao says outlets popular for non-veg food and drinks experience a slump till Deepavali but Fox in the Field, a microbrewery in Whitefield, has seen a 30-40% increase in footfalls, according to general manager Rajat Singh Rawat.

He looks for extra hands in the kitchen and for table service, and existing staff bring friends and family looking to make some extra money. Training happens on the job and by shadowing, he adds.

Debaditya Chaudhury, managing director of Chowman (five restaurants and a cloud kitchen in the city), is anticipating a 30% jump in takeaways as people like to host house parties. So they have taken on students from hotel management institutes as interns.

Another model is to mobilise existing teams. Sathender Singh, associate director, F&B, Renaissance Bengaluru Race Course Hotel, says the hotel ropes in staff from departments like finance, HR, and sales in addition to sourcing workers externally.