AgTalk | Content cooked and served on television: Sanjeev Kapoor

From chef to a brand, meet one of India’s most recognized faces, Sanjeev Kapoor. Co-owner of FoodFood, India’s first 24 hour food lifestyle channel, he is more an entrepreneur than just a chef. Sanjeev Kapoor is the same personality who hosted a TV show Khana Khazana on Indian television for more than 17 years. He is an author too, has sold many cookbooks and won National Award for ‘Best Chef of the Year 2008’. Sanjeev Kapoor has been an inspiration to wannabe chefs, housewives and youngsters for whom cooking in style is a passion. He has also been working hard on his channel ‘Food Food’.

Adgully caught up with Sanjeev Kapoor, celebrity chef and co-owner of channel in an exclusive interaction.

Following are the excerpts from the conversation.

Adgully (AG): How would you define the journey of channel ‘Food Food’?

Sanjeev Kapoor (SK): The concept about this channel came to my mind almost 7-8 years ago and I launched ‘Food Food’ two years ago. The journey has been fantastic and I am very satisfied with the way it has been till now.

AG: What are the new options that you are exploring for future growth of the Sanjeev Kapoor brand?

SK: I have multiple things with which I am associated, on the intellectual side I deal with loads of content on the media digital, internet, television, radio, magazines, newspapers, books everywhere in different formats. Extending to television content - apart from FoodFood, I have dedicated channel ‘Sanjeev Kapoor’s Khazana’ on Youtube, which is the leading no. 1 show on Youtube in the country. I also have restaurants in different parts of world, 54 restaurants in India, abroad in Gulf Countries, recently opened one in Jordan too. We have food products like pickles and ready-to-made foods which are available in stores; apart from that we have 500-600 products in food cookware category under ‘Wonderchefs’ banner, which is the name of the company. We sell it in different retail shops. I also do endorsements with brands and give expertise as an industry expert. I also teach and have been a part of live events to engage with the audience. I look Sanjeev Kapoor as a brand in India in a way that in India I’ve achieved this position that whatever related to food is referred to Sanjeev Kapoor. This is what I want to take   to the global level. It’s one of the top 3 priorities we want to achieve in the next 3-5 years.

AG: Who is the TG of the channel and what kind of gap according you the brand Food Food is fulfilling?

SK: Essentially there are not many channels in this category in India, there are big channels, and GEC’s which women mainly watch and news & music which are youth centric. Whenever there is opportunity in market, specialisation will be there. So, in TV also mature market specialisation will happen. If you take food there was not much market in this context. The three ways in which Indian audiences get entertained are bollywood, cricket and food. While bollywood and cricket are very well presented on television, food wasn’t. So there was a gap which I saw and launched FoodFood. Almost two and half year ago I had said that food is the next entertainment and you see today around you there is so much of food on television. At that time no one easily believed in this and today it’s been telecasted on prime time, I am happy to say that whatever I predicted then became true. We are also attracting a lot of younger audiences today.

AG: At recent press conference you shared info that now the channel has stepped out of the studio and have started exploring with outdoor shoot. What was the need of that?

SK: When food is your destination and people want to know about food, we as market leader need to explore everything in relation to food, and it’s just not limited to recipes today. Rather food has become lifestyle and it has to be treated in that way. When we talk about lifestyle, one thing is travel, and the attraction in travel is how good the food is at different places. For viewers who are watching FoodFood, it’s our responsibility to share location and other things focused on food with them and do it in a way that it becomes entertaining, upscale and engaging content. It also provides opportunity to get new audiences because sometimes people, who watch shows, don’t really cook. Being specialty channel we want to be mass not niche.

AG: What are the key challenges being faced by the channel?

SK: One of the challenges which was there in our mind was that to create awareness and understanding about our brand/channel and what to expect. When I first started it was difficult for us to explain people that something like this can also exist and do well. People used to ask 24 hours food show, what will it be all about? Initially when I launched FoodFood, people used to say that, it’s nice to hear that you launched food related content but on which channel it’s been launched. I had to explain that it’s not a show but a channel. It was the biggest challenge. Broadcasting, distribution as challenges are still there now. When you do business either you take challenges in negative way saying it is a challenge or take it positively as new opportunities.

AG: How has digitisation helped FoodFood channel?

SK: It has helped, as it has created more choice for us and for the viewers too.

AG: How is the food industry performing today and what kind of opportunities you see in the market?

SK: Its a phenomenon, there are loads of food specific shows around us, prime time show Master Chef on Star Plus is one example. The reason why I did that show was to get people’s understanding and confidence that food shows work well in mature markets. And with FoodFood we would like to grow not only our channel but the overall market.

AG: As the Indian currency is going down, how are the industries with which you are associated impacted?

SK: If I tell about the food industry, in terms of restaurants and hotels business, I have market size of about Rs 50,000 crores out of which Rs 11,000 crores we get from food category and organisers. It’s growing, the shift is happening from unorganised to organised category by 20 per cent year on year. It’s a relevant market for us.

AG: Within shows you created various opportunities of brand integration which had not existed in channels genre from a long time. Do you see getting more advertisers going forward?

SK: Today we have all food brands, all top 35 brands are with us. Now we want to get more lifestyle brands, so earlier our task was to get food brands and now we are also looking at other brands not specific from food category. We are willing to grow the market with advertiser’s point of view as well.

AG: Which are the shows that are being aired on the channel currently? Are you in the process to launch new shows?

SK: We have shows like Tea Time, Health Maange More, Style Chef, Mummy ka Magic and several health-based shows. We keep doing new seasons of our popular shows. The How to Cook series, Sanjeev Kapoor's Kitchen and Maa ki Daal did well. We recently launched Hi Tea and Out of the World series – Africa. We are continuously looking at new concepts for our shows.

AG: What is the approximate size of the market(s) in which the channel operates?

SK: Currently we reach around 40 million homes and also we are reaching out in Canada, UAE, Qatar and the US. We are also planning to reach out to more and more international markets; we would expand the market and have plans to telecast shows in other markets, in different languages. The channel is available in all the HSMs (Hindi speaking markets). Ours was the first HD ready channel, with all content being HD ready since the channel's inception.

AG: How is the channel positioned?

SK: The channel has received more viewership than expected. We are far ahead than some of the well-established lifestyle. channels/shows.

AG: Please share with us your future plans? And also what is your grand vision?

SK: I have shows which are doing well; I have an active website and an active Facebook page having 6.5 lakhs fans base. There are on-going things which need to be managed as of now. I am doing a show with Sony channel titled ‘Sanjeev Kapoor Ke Kitchen Khiladi’. I did shows on Hindi GEC’s to show that food category is a big category and is becoming bigger now. My vision and dream is to popularize Indian food and take it abroad; and create recognition and love for food at international level.