For the last six years, Media Promotions Pvt. Ltd. has been organising the Goa Food and Hospitality Expo. This year, the Expo kicked off on 23rd August and Creometric was invited to be a part of the panel discussion that happened there, the topic of which was Food Startups with the theme Start Small, Grow Tall. Kurt Bento (partner, Creometric) was on the panel in his capacity as a digital marketer.
The discussion covered all the nitty gritties of starting a food related business; right from the licenses and permissions required, to effectively marketing and promoting your business. It also brought to attention certain food related government schemes that entrepreneurs can avail of that often go unnoticed.
When covering the marketing aspect of setting up a startup, the importance of allocating a realistic marketing budget at the very beginning was stressed upon. Creometric’s Kurt Bento highlighted the importance of digital marketing, since almost everybody is part of the virtual world these days. While maintaining a presence on digital platforms it is important to maintain consistency in the material that you’re putting out, be it across digital platforms or the more traditional ones. Another key point is that the content that you put out needs to be in line with what your brand stands for. The need to reinvent your product offerings so as to give people a reason to keep coming back is another salient feature. The digital medium can be an invaluable tool in a company’s marketing mix since it allows you to engage with the customer directly.
The other panelists were prominent members from the industry namely Nupura Hautamaki, (Acting City Editor (Goa), Little Black Book), P P Kulkarni (MSME DI, Goa), Dr. Jennifer Lewis Kamat (Chairperson, GCCI, Womens Wing), Prahlad Sukhtankar (owner, Black Sheep Bistro), Venugopal T.R (Incubation Manager, CIBA), Toshit Bharara (Regional Head, Zomato) and Chef Kunal Arolkar (owner, Foody Breaks). The session was moderated by Sunita Rodrigues.
The session ended with a round of Q&A which the several of the panelists took turns addressing. It is safe to say that the session was extremely fruitful and the attendees left all the wiser.
Creometric was also part of a panel discussion on catering, read the blog here.