Megabite – Elior Kitchen at Doddanekundi, Bangalore is one of a kind kitchen spread across 4500 sq.ft. making 20,000 meals in a day. They cater to top corporates across 25 sites in Bangalore city. To name a few of the corporates they serve -Linkedin, Microsoft, Walmart, Target, Accenture and many more. I got an opportunity to do a facility tour and interact with Chef, along with members from BEML Ladies Club.

Mrs. Sreela Hota (wife of Mr. Deepak Hota – CMD BEML) & other ladies of the club had a tasting session at every section and tremendously enjoyed the food.

Mrs. Hota commented, “At the outset, we at the BEML Ladies club would like to extend our deepest appreciation for the wonderful visit that was organised for us on Tuesday, 12th June 2018. We thoroughly enjoyed the tour of the kitchen and especially the sumptuous spread that was laid down for us. Our sincerest thanks to the entire team at Elior’s Kitchen for giving us an experience of a lifetime”.

About the Megabite Kitchen

The entire Megabite facility in Bangalore is managed by Chef Prabhakar Nagaraj & Mr. Vishal Suri, the Managing Partners of Megabite. During the facility tour, we got an opportunity to interact with Chefs and various staff members working in the kitchen. Some of the info shared about the facility by chefs and some of the staff.

• Chef Prabhakar Nagaraj – ex Leela, is the Executive Chef for the entire Kitchen. Chef Arun Kumar, who formerly worked with Chef Prabhakar in Leela, assists in various activities around the Kitchen.
• The entire kitchen is well-divided into multiple department cooking making South Indian, North Indian, Continental, Dessert, Chats & more separately.
• Individual departments have Head Chef who specialize in the area and they do the tasting before sending across to corporates.
• Once in a week, testing lab perform quality checks on food samples.
• Quality checks done daily, ensure that the food going to corporates are healthy.
• Healthy oils like Refined Sunflower Oil, Gingerly Oil, Groundnut Oil used in making the dishes.
• Special safety instruction for Chefs working on frying items in hot oil, pinned to wall.
• On a daily basis, the kitchen receives nearly 250+ items supplied. They have a storage facility for keeping items required for next 5-7 days.
• The quality team makes note of expiry date, raises flag when the dates nears.
• Megabite has another smaller kitchen closer to the Manyata Tech Park for being able to serve fresh food to corporates in North Bangalore.
• The facility also has a tie-up with Tata Institute of Social Sciences for training programs in diploma course in Hotel Management.

Interaction with Chef Arun Kumar

It was great interaction with Chef Arun Kumar and getting clarification on many of the queries.  Every answer given by the Chef was very convincing and I could sense that he wanted to always send out the best for every corporate.  Chefs shared inputs on various intricate details about the kitchen.

• Quality check performed on the ingredients arriving at the facility.
• Food tasting performed before sending the dishes to corporates.
• Specific recipes used for making dishes to maintain consistency in the taste.
• Menu pattern maintained for every corporate.
• Megabite also supplies to client that have onsite kitchen – Google, Cisco, Canadian International School, Swiss RE among many others.
• Cleaning of vegetables by washing, sanitizing and rinsing before being using for cooking.

Apart from the above-mentioned points, Chef also shared recipes for some of the interesting dishes prepared for food tasting. It was an informative and useful session.

Food Tasting Session

The Chefs from various department are training in various cuisines. During the facility tour, I got to try some of the wonderful Mocktails, Indian & Continental Snacks. The taste of every dish was awesome, and it did showcase the skill of chefs.

Some of the unique dishes I tried including – Chocolate Pani Puri with Strawberry Pani, Coconut Payasam, Potli Chat with carrot halwa, Kachori, Bruschetta (with different toppings), Sandwiches, Pastries and more.

About Elior Group

Elior group is one of the world’s leading operators in the contracted food and support services industry founded 25 years ago in France. Operating in 16 countries, Elior Group is a leader in its main markets, in Europe, North America and Latin America and has entered the Indian market. Their key clients include LinkedIn, Google, Microsoft, Accenture, Cisco, VISA, Goldman Sachs and some more. The company’s main mission is to welcome and take care of each individual, through personalized catering & service solutions.

Final Thoughts

It was a great afternoon spent at the Megabite Kitchen. I got an opportunity to interact with Chef and staff at the facility. The facility looked neat and clean. Every individual working in the facility was wearing a uniform and were aware of their individual roles & responsibilities.  The chefs at Megabite have been serving variety of cuisines to different corporates over the years.  It will become easier to extrapolate the model to many more corporates across the city and various places across the country.