Yajur Arora, born and brought up in the USA, comes from a background in the hospitality industry. Yajur’s family owned a chain of restaurant outlets in the US. Yajur reminisces how he spent his teenage years interning at his family restaurant outlets. He worked closely with the chefs and other executives learning the operations, handling the equipment and discovering more in the restaurant.
As a child, he garnered a keen appreciation of good, wholesome food. After Yajur moved back to India, he decided to start his own bakery outlet, named Whipped. Initially, he outsourced desserts from his sister’s outlet, specializing in 20+ flavours of cheesecakes. Slowly and gradually, Whipped grew into a full-fledged store. Currently, they have four outlets which include a virtual store, delivering across India. With a kitchen space as huge as 6000 square ft. and a team of 75 people, Whipped aims at people who look for flavour, innovation, expertise and fun when it comes to desserts!
In Conversation With Yajur Arora of Whipped
In an exclusive conversation with The Restaurant Times, Yajur Arora talks of his journey in the industry, the story behind Whipped, the parameters of dessetarian culture, and a lot more.
Goal Of Defining The Parameters Of ‘Dessertarian Culture’
One of the primary ways an organization sets and strengthens its brand is its culture. A well-defined and supported culture enables people to make decisions easily and quickly because it helps everyone develop a shared understanding of the right thing to do. It clarifies what’s “on brand” and what’s not, so big, strategic decisions, as well as smaller, daily ones, can be made with confidence and commitment.
At Whipped, the focus is to define a culture among the customers based on their demands. Originally, not many people in India liked cheesecakes, so they started with 20 flavours. Gradually, the response was so overwhelming, that they expanded their base. Currently, they have 65+ flavours.
Arora mentions that consumer tastes should not be taken for granted.
“Nowadays, consumers in India are well-travelled. The consumers know exactly what you are selling and the quality of your product. Never over-commit to your customers. Always promise them with what you can offer in terms of quality and service,” says Arora.
According to Arora, the palate of your guests is ever-changing. It is imperative to keep on changing with time and upgrading the menu, to offer a better range of products.
Arora feels lucky to be able to bridge the gap between the customer demands of innovation and never playing with the quality and service of the product. At Whipped, they make sure they stay true to their core values and aim to over-deliver in terms of quality and service!
Food and Lifestyle At Whipped
Successful people are forward thinkers. Yajur is a progressive individual and is always looking ahead. Through Whipped, Yajur wants to radiate a sense of progressiveness through their products.
Whipped, considers itself as a lifestyle brand. They send a digital newsletter to their consumers, where they create awareness and talk about social aspects like Cancer, HIV and more. They analyse and discuss these issues through the voice of their brand.. One of their popular products, ‘Jake’, which is cake in a jar exhibits the value in their tagline, which says, ‘Love You Love Me!’
“We want to break the stereotype. We are not an ordinary bakery outlet. Whipped strives and aims to make the consumers feel special and loved. We wanted consumers to feel elated while they are leaving the outlet,” says Arora.
Arora shares that they are coming up with a new brand shortly, which will be discussing the social aspects in detail and cater to all the social classes of the economy!
“What Not To Do” At A Bakery
- Do Not Save Money On Technology:Arora shares that having efficient POS software is an imperative part of running a bakery business. One should not try to save money while acquiring the right POS. “Our POS software, Posist, helps us to take care of 80% of our operations, which helps in streamlining the operations and running it smoothly!” he continues.
- Do Not Compete, But Learn:To beat the competition at their own game, it’s essential that the restaurateur knows them well. Arora says that it is essential to learn from your competitors and keep growing. Analyzing your competitive advantage is also a crucial aspect, it is the distinguishing feature which helps one to achieve a higher yield over time.
- Do Not Lose The Essence Of Your Work:According to Arora, it is essential to work to your strengths rather than trying to add a lot of things on the plate. Work on the existing variety/cuisine of food offered at your outlet and keep on upgrading it!
Strategies To Run A Successful Bakery
- Be Honest With Your Clients: When you are honest with your customers, you immediately begin to create a bond of trust and confidence with them. So many people appreciate businesses for telling it like it is. The rapport that you establish with your customers, in this instance, will do well to guard prospective relationships. This leads the customers to go back to the businesses that they trust!
- Maintain Consistency: When a restaurant expands and opens a second or third outlet, the taste is often not the same. For this reason, multiple-outlet restaurants need to maintain the consistency in taste, as well as service, not only to attract and retain customers but also to replicate the success of the first restaurant outlet.
- Grow Your Employees: Educating, rather than instructing your restaurant staff is essential for your restaurant as well as the employees. According to Arora, your restaurant employees are like the backbone of your restaurant – unless you have a strong team of individuals who are dedicatedly working towards the success of your business, you can hardly expect to flourish. So, it is essential to continuously work towards their growth and educating them.
- Role Of Technology: With the coming of POS software, all the operations are handled smoothly, from billing to taking orders, with highly flexible configurations. At Whipped, they use Posist. Arora shares that with the help of Posist, they have been able to track a lot of wastages and keep it under control. It has helped to streamline the operations, which further assisted the employees in the organization to take care of other activities in the outlet and refine them. The system, being so transparent, helps them to analyze how much to produce and purchase every single day, this not only helps in cutting down the expenses and unnecessary wastages but also takes care of the overall management.
