Hotels feel pinch as tomato & veggies prices shoot up

Indore: As prices of tomato and most vegetables continue to surge amid short supply, restaurants and food joints have started feeling the pinch of high operational cost resulting in squeezing of margins with many small eateries removing tomatoes from the salad plate and cutting down on quantity.Small food joints have either replaced tomatoes in their preparations with other veggies or have reduced the quantity of servings to cope with the hike in operational cost while big hotels and chains said they are losing on profit margins. In Niranjanpur vegetable market of Indore, tomatoes were priced at Rs 170 per kg on Monday, while prices of most vegetables were more than double. Most impact of the spike in tomato and vegetable prices has come on small hotels and road side eateries operating on less margins, while big hotels have yearly contracts from vendors for supply of vegetables and other grocery items. A street vendor in Dewas Naka Rohit Verma said, “I make different varieties of sandwiches for which tomato is a basic ingredient. I tried to adjust for a few days but now its beyond my capacity and now I have eliminated tomatoes from sandwiches. Even customers understand the situation so they do not make a fuss about it.” Hoteliers said, upwardly revising the menu is not that easy as it’s a competitive market and printing new menus is also a pricey affair so many have resorted to replacing tomatoes and reducing the quantity of serving. They said, tomato is a basic item that goes into most preparations be it vegetarian or non-vegetarian and continuous rise in its prices is adversely affecting small businesses. Indore Hotelier Association president Sumit Suri said, “Profit margins have gone down for hotels and restaurants. But we have to bear the heat because big hotels cannot compromise on quality and quantity. We have also not raised the prices of any dish and have asked our members to not compromise with the quality.”