Experts talked about the possible reasons for the decline in the quality of prepared foods delivered in Russia

According to him, the increased economic burden on catering companies and the increase in prices for courier services affect the quality of delivered prepared foods. Evgeny Kondakov, consultant and owner of the company Megaset74.

The businessman commented on the situation around “Kitchen in the District” (legal entity LLC “LocalKitchen”), whose prepared food poisoned more than 120 people, who were suspected of suffering from botulism; The general director and the head of Kitchen’s quality department in the district, as well as the director of the bean manufacturer Savon-K, were arrested.

According to Kondakov, owners of catering establishments today bear huge costs for food and staff.

“Those who work in public catering, to remain in the market, in the same price segment and not work at a loss, have to look for cheaper products. In turn, manufacturers obtain cheaper products due to savings in personnel, in premises that are not always suitable and, in part, in raw materials,” Kondakov said.

Another big problem is the staff. Many employees left their jobs due to recent geopolitical events, and those who remained had their salaries increased.

The expert also noted an increase in prices for courier shipments due to the reduction in the number of cars and problems with spare parts.

When asked what can be done to prevent incidents like those at Cocina del Barrio, the expert advised establishing total control and observing health standards, and carrying out a food safety audit. These services are offered, for example, by doctors with experience working in Rospotrebnadzor.

The expert states that in his companies, for example, he will stop working with raw materials, although this will cause an increase in final prices. For example, when working with ready-made salted salmon, the price of the final product will increase by 20-25%, but this will protect the catering company from claims.

At the time co-founder and CEO of the unified food ordering service Chibbis.ru Sergey Spiro He stated that companies are not yet immune to the human factor.

“From the point of view of a million orders delivered, this tragedy is a rare statistical error, but it is important to remember that these are not about numbers on graphs, but about the lives and health of individual people. None of us is immune to such poisoning. But companies are not immune to the human factor, no matter how well internal work processes are organized,” says Spiro.

According to the businessman, today one in three aspiring businessmen works in public catering.

“The niche may seem clear and the barrier to entry may not be high. But when a situation like this happens, you immediately remember what the cost of a mistake is in this industry,” concluded the co-founder.

• In December 2023, the food delivery service “Kitchen in the Area” in partnership with Samokat, in addition to Moscow and St. Petersburg, began operating in eight new cities of Russia, these are Kazan, Tver, Nizhny Novgorod, Veliky Novgorod and in the cities of the Moscow region Kolomna Noginsk and Orekhovo-Zuevo.
• At the end of 2023, LocalKitchen LLC’s net loss reached 1.3 billion rubles, and revenue increased by 19% to 3.3 billion rubles. Since 2019, the company has never made a net profit.
• According to the Unified State Register of Legal Entities, 84.72% of the company belongs to O2O Holding LLC, another 6.91% each belongs to co-founders Oleg Kozyrev and Alexey Kolesnikov, and 2.58% belongs to the general director Anton Lozin.

• In May 2020, the startup attracted investments from O2O Holding in exchange for a 30% stake. In September of the same year, the holding’s stake increased to almost 85%.

• In August 2022, VK ​​​​​​and Sber decided to split the joint venture O2O Holding. As a result of the split of O2O Holding, VK became the owner of its key asset – Delivery Club. Then the company changed it to “News” and “Zen”, which belonged to Yandex. Currently, the owners of O2O Holding LLC are not specified in the Unified State Register of Legal Entities, as it is under Ukrainian sanctions.
• The project was founded by Oleg Kozyrev, Alexey Kolesnikov and Maxim Yanpolsky in 2018. According to the Telegram channel “UnderPyar”, Kozyrev and Kolesnikov allegedly left the project before the mass poisoning, left to create new companies abroad and left Anton Lozin in charge of the business. In an interview with Forbes, Lozin said that he constantly fought with the founders.