Cinema halls across India were forced to down shutters for nearly 8 months in 2020 amid the COVID-19 pandemic, bringing their business to a grinding halt. Even with theatres reopening with limited capacity, footfalls remain elusive. This has forced cinema halls, especially multiplex chains, to experiment with their business models and go beyond just the movies. Inox Leisure, which has experimented with private screenings, is now expanding its foods and beverages business to rake in additional revenues.

The F&B segment contributed 26 percent to Inox Leisure’s revenues in FY20 and as of nine months of FY21, with hardly any business, this fell to about 11.2 percent. Inox is now aggressively growing its F&B segment to capture non-cinema consumers as well. It plans to increase the F&B contribution to revenues to 30-35 percent by the end of FY22.

Inox currently sells food under three brands Unwind Café, which is the café it has inside its cinema halls, INSIGNIA, its premium offering and Delights under which it is currently selling food on Swiggy and Zomato. Inox now plans to convert these into full-service restaurant brands to target non-cinema consumers as well. The idea, the company says, is to tap a new consumer base that buys its food products even if they are not watching a movie.

It will do this through the launch of a range of ready-to-eat products that Inox will launch in FY22. This includes meal options like Pulao, Biryani, Dal Makhani, Rajma-rice & Chana-rice, Pastas, Garlic Bread and Chilli Cheese Toasts.

On the beverage front, Inox plans to launch a range of juices and mojitos, besides the introduction of ‘Popcorn shake’. Inox is also looking to introduce more options in its popcorn range, along with the introduction of exotic jar-based dessert options like Tiramisu and Blueberry Mousse.

“As food outlets, our cinemas will be the first ones to open, and the last ones to close, giving us the advantage of a day-long multi-meal service window, allowing us to deliver breakfast, lunch, high tea and dinner orders. We are seeing smaller food ordering consumer segments like office goers, travellers, shoppers, professionals working from home gaining in volume and value. As a segment, even the impulsive smaller-portion orders is also emerging as a significant chunk in the pie. Therefore, we see potential in the ordering of exotic dishes, home-meal-replacement dishes as well as smaller snackable preparations,” a company spokesperson told CNBC-TV18.

It is also planning to foray into catering for private and social events. Inox has already begun experimenting with outdoor catering and now has structured plans to strengthen this domain and make it more organized.

With new processes such as making food available of food ordering apps and expanding its food products, the company is also putting in place new processes, supply chains and is reworking the packaging of its food.

“With the sole objective of serving fresh food, always & everywhere, our logistics front would also witness a lot of innovations. Our cold chain and supply chain partners will play a huge role in this endeavour,” the spokesperson added.

The significance of Inox expanding its food range stems from the fact that the multiplex chain saw its revenues fall 98 percent in the first three-quarters of FY21. Despite theatres reopening, occupancy and footfall levels remain low. As of 9MFY21, Inox saw footfalls of only 5 lakh in total in its theatres with an average occupancy rate of 3 percent. The spend-per-head (SPH), which is how much each customer ends up spending at Inox also marginally fell from around Rs 80 to Rs 73. A new range of food offerings would help Inox get its customers to spend more on food, increasing its SPH and potentially its revenues through F&B.

(Edited by : Priyanka Rathi, Abhishek Jha)

First Published:Mar 15, 2021 1:41 PM IST