H1N1 affects food business in Bangalore

Bangalore, Aug 19: With the HINI terror in air, Bangaloreans are avoiding eating in restaurants and opting for home deliveries.

"We have seen an uptake in home deliveries by 10 per cent", says Ritesh Dwivedy, co-founder of Hungryzone.com, a popular food website, which provides contacts of food joints and home delivery services in Bangalore. He added that this trend is more prevalent in medium restaurants and not in big hotels.

Citizens felt that eating in crowded places makes one vulnerable to the virus.

"In our apartment, many of us have decided to skip eating outside and now have begun ordering food to be delivered at home. While eating out at crowded places, the chances of catching the virus is more, hence we have opted for this safe option," says a resident of an upmarket area.

Ritesh also said that his customers are mainly young IT or bank professionals and 30 per cent of his business is dependent on home services.

Parents of wards residing in hostels are also placing orders to prevent their children from going to the eating joints and catching the flu.

Ajay, co founder of webdhaba,com said that food joint owners are focusing more on home services for the coming months.

Even office people have stopped going to their regular tea joints.

"We have skipped going out for lunch. We now rather prefer to order the same food at office. Eating out meant, venturing into crowded places and sitting at a joint where people from all backgrounds walk in, irrespective of their health status come in", said a woman working in a commercial hub.

However, warned by this dip in customers most of the food joints are adopting measures to provide safety to the customers.

"The temperature of the staff coming in is monitored every four hours. Anybody showing symptoms of fever, cold, cough are not allowed to work," said Amrita Pai, Senior Manager, Corporate Communication, at McDonald.

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