Amid rising input costs, B'luru eateries hike prices

Your favourite dishes are dearer by about 10% from this week

Your favourite coffee or masala dosa in Bengaluru is getting dearer by 5 to 10% and your much-loved bajjis may be knocked off the menu in some restaurants soon. Restaurants and hotel chains have started recalibrating their menu to counter the soaring costs of fuel, cooking gas and provisions.

Bruhat Bengaluru Hoteliers Association, which has members from 2,000 F&B businesses, last Monday recommended a price hike of up to 10%. P C Rao, president, says a few restaurants have already increased rates and many more will follow this week.

Mukesh Tolani, Bengaluru head, National Restaurant Association of India, says the price hike on the menu is a call restaurants have to take depending on their expenses. “With business resuming after two years, no restaurant would want to cut down on profits they could make,” he goes on to add.

How they got here

Fuel prices in Bengaluru have gone up by over Rs 5 a litre in the last two weeks. As of Wednesday, the price of petrol in Bengaluru was Rs 111.09 a litre, and diesel was Rs 94.79 a litre.

Jagadish, manager of Raghavendra Tiffin Centre in Koramangala, used to pay Rs 16,000-Rs 17,000 per week to vendors supplying vegetables till last month. Now the bill is up by at least Rs 4,000, he says. He believes customers in Koramangala and his second outlet in the neighbouring HSR Layout won’t mind a marginal rise in food prices. “But on the city’s outskirts, people get upset over even a Rs 2 increase,” he says.

Meanwhile, online food delivery apps haven’t hiked their charges yet, says Rao.

Indifferent govt

From Rs 1,710 for a LPG gas cylinder of 19 kg in April 2021, the price has climbed to Rs 2,329 now, says Arun Adiga, owner of Bengaluru’s iconic Vidyarthi Bhavan in Gandhi Bazaar. “For commercial cooking gas, the government levies 18% GST but only 5% for domestic use cylinders. We gave a representation to finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman in Bengaluru asking for a reduction but she has not responded,” says Rao.

Sunflower oil is another big worry. The most used edible oil by prime restaurants and hotels, the price of the sunflower oil has risen from Rs 140 a litre to Rs 190 in 45 days, according to D S Balaji, whose company Lakshmi Agrotech supplies cooking oil to restaurants and hotels across Karnataka.

Ukraine is the largest exporter of sunflower oil, followed by Russia, and their conflict has hit imports. It is reported that these countries meet about 90% of India’s sunflower oil needs. According to Indian Vegetable Oil Producers’ Association, India’s current stock of sunflower will last 30-40 days.

So suppliers like Balaji are trying to source sunflower oil from the US and Argentina instead. He is also asking clients to shift to alternatives like groundnut oil, soybean refined oil, rice bran oil and cotton seed oil, which currently cost between Rs 140 and Rs 180 per litre, lesser than the sunflower oil.

No deep-fried stuff

The owner of a hotel chain is planning to drop 20 items from his menu of 180 temporarily. “Mostly deep-fried items,” he talks of his strategy to beat oil prices.

Vidyarthi Bhavan is mulling a 5%-10% price increase on all six of its items. “We are one of the largest users of butter in the city. We use it in our masala dosa. The price of 1 kg butter has gone up by Rs 50. The total input cost has increased by 30%,” says owner Arun. He is currently updating his billing software, and communicating the price change to online delivery platforms, as 25-30% of his business comes from deliveries.

“Every April, employee’s salaries are raised and the fuel hike has added to the pressure,” says Hemamalini Maiya, managing partner of MTR restaurants. The chain will introduce a hike of about 8% on food by mid-April. She feels most customers will understand these revisions and business will remain steady.

Nikhil Gupta, who runs The Pizza Bakery in Indiranagar, says the prices of dairy products like cheese have gone up by almost 30%. “Even the price of chicken feed, which comes from Russia, has increased, so the chicken is costlier,” he says.

Rao is also anticipating an increase in power tariff for commercial establishments. Takeaway boxes are costlier by 30%, a 5% hike on rentals usually kicks in April, and coffee and tea powder have become costlier too, restaurant owners Metrolife spoke to list out the challenges.

Hard to digest

Petrol: Rs 100.58 in January, Rs 111.09 now.

Diesel: Rs 85.01 in January, Rs 94.79 now.

Cooking gas: Rs 1,710 per 19 kg cylinder in April 2021. It has climbed to Rs 2,329 now.

Sunflower oil: Approx Rs 97,300 per tonne in April 2021, Rs 1.5 lakh per tonne now.

Diners speak

Couple Srikanth K and Jyotsana P from Hennur used to dine out two or three times a week before the pandemic. Now they do it once or twice a month. “Due to reduced salaries, we had decided to reduce these visits. We plan to dine out for special occasions,” says Jyotsana.