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The work of caring has assumed utmost importance during the devastation caused by the pandemic. We employ the feminist theory of care ethics within the context of food provisioning during the pandemic, and examine the work of Food for Chennai, a group of micro-volunteers in the city of Chennai, India who provide home-cooked meals, free of charge, to COVID-19 patients and households that are in quarantine. Using textual and visual data from social media posts (Facebook, WhatsApp, and Instagram), interviews with an organizer of the movement, and print – media articles, we trace the evolution of this movement, and argue that this network of care could not have developed or grown without the use of digital infrastructure and the affective campaigning that it enables. We add to the scholarship of three linked bodies of work – digital activism, food ethics, and the ethics of care – by grounding our analysis in the immediacy of the crisis and suggesting avenues for thinking about ethical issues and digital activism as crisis response in the future. We conclude by offering ways of reimagining food systems that could embrace values of care in the post-pandemic world.

Entrepreneurship; Business Strategy; Business Environment courses.

This case is appropriate for use in Masters in Business Administration (MBA) programs as well as advanced undergraduate courses. The case provides an apt simulation of the emerging Indian fast food companies in the competitive dynamics of Indian business environment.

Rakesh an MBA graduate from the University of Hartford, Connecticut, after four years of corporate experience, made a decision to start a business of his own. Thus, was born Infusions Foods Pvt Ltd (IFPL) an entrepreneurial venture of Rakesh Raghunathan. IFPL launched its fast food chain of grilled wraps under the brand name of PETAWRAP. The brand was positioned to target the recent consumer behavior shift of Indian consumers which was towards healthy, nutritious food combined with the concept of necessity-based eating out.IFPL had successfully opened six company owned outlets by March 2011. Their strategy for success was built on the age-old four-point formula of a good-quality product, at value for money prices, delivered efficiently to the customers. The absence of “a hygienic branded product” in this Indian fast food industry contributed to the initial success of their company. Rakesh believed that key to building the brand image depended on quality in terms of operations standardization and product quality.

The case is structured to achieve the following pedagogical objectives: To identify the forces on which of an entrepreneurial opportunity is dependent; To analyze the changes in competitive dynamics of Indian fast food industry and identify the factors that lead to the emergence and acceptance of PetaWrap; To understand the challenges of building a brand in low-cost business model and the economics of cost incurred; To evaluate the business strategy and the business model adopted by the company for expansion.

Teaching notes

The given case deals with the fact that primary objectives of services producers and marketers are identical to those of all marketers: to develop and provide offerings that satisfy consumer needs and expectations, thereby ensuring their own economic survival. To achieve these objectives, service providers need to understand how consumers choose, experience, and evaluate their service offerings. It also talks about employing innovative techniques at the basic level by optimizing available resources offering quality service at value based pricing, thereby, increasing customer retention by developing the trust of the consumer.

Graduation or post graduation level students studying subjects pertaining to the services aspect of marketing, namely innovative service offerings, value for money, service experience and evaluation, challenge of integrating the 4 A's of services marketing and offering them in sustainable quality, promotional or communication mix for services and consumer behaviour.

Today's dual-career couples, single-parent families, and two-job families are realizing a burning consumer need: more time. Individuals in these and other non-traditional family configurations are overstressed with their work and home obligations and find that dealing with many of life's everyday tasks is overwhelming. For many customers, all types of shopping have become “drudgery or worse.” The antidote to this time deficiency is found in many new services that recover time for consumers. One such professional service is catering. The present case study deals with grass root level innovations in this service offering that adds flavour to our lives.

Understanding the catering services offering and its features in evolving consumer's world; analyzing the importance of optimizing available resources and offering customer satisfaction, ensuring marketers own economic survival; realizing the significance of value offering and related value based pricing for services; comprehending the importance of word of mouth in post experience evaluation in services; the effect of quality and quantity consciousness in marketers while offering catering services; and understanding obstacles and challenges faced by small and medium service industries at the initial level.

Teaching notes.

The purpose of this paper is to estimate the market demand and compare the average market margins for six broad categories of fresh produce in different retail formats across five select cities of the country. It also tries to qualitatively understand the supply chain management practices of these retailers across cities.

Registered retail outlets were selected randomly from online sources. Market potential was estimated as the average sales of each category of fresh produce. Personal interviews were conducted with the market players in order to collect qualitative data about their supply chain management practices.

Potatoes, onions and tomatoes are the largest consumed category of fresh produce across cities. Consumers in Tier 1 and Tier 2 cities exhibit different buying behavior and preferences. Large retailers and small retailers coexist in the cities. Marketing margins of retail formats are not uniform across cities.

The study did not capture the reasons for the differences observed in consumer preferences and buying behavior across cities. The study has taken into consideration only registered neighborhood stores in the study locations.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, the paper is first of its kind which has attempted to estimate the categorywise market potential of fresh produce across study cities.

The paper seeks to capture the history of the evolution of modern‐format food and grocery retail in India. Its focus is on the time period from 1971 to 2001.

The research is primarily exploratory in nature. Primary research included depth interviews, focus groups and survey through questionnaire with organized retailers, unorganized retailers, consumers, fast‐moving consumer goods manufacturers, channel members and opinion‐leaders. Secondary research involved a review of the existing literature on Indian retail available at that time.

Emergence of modern retail in India is not just a result of increasing consumer buying power – manufacturers and unorganized retailers also have an important role to play in this process at the macro‐level. At the micro‐level, the trigger came from diverse angles like entrepreneurial desire to provide better service to consumers, social desire to provide relief to the masses in the form of lower prices, desire to capitalize on emerging business opportunities being provided by the changing business environment, etc.

Being an early work in this area, the research was exploratory in nature and tried to understand the role of different stakeholders in emergence of modern retail in India. It does not use any statistical technique to prove or disprove any hypothesis. It is focused on the food and grocery retail business.

The paper provides a historical perspective to academics as well as practitioners.

Winner of the 2014 EFMD competition for best case on Indian Management Issues and Opportunities.

After a highly successful third round of funding in 2012, Gaurav Jain, founder of quick service restaurant chain Mast Kalandar, was looking to expand. In addition to opening new stores in other cities, Jain was also hoping to increase the profitability of his existing stores in Bangalore, Hyderabad, Chennai, and Pune. He needed to fully understand the financials of his current operations and identify the key drivers of success at the stores, at both the city and corporate levels. With this understanding, he would be able to evaluate how best to improve the performance of existing outlets and to choose an entry strategy for new cities. Students are asked to develop a financial model for outlets and use it to compare different growth strategies.

After analyzing this case, students will be able to:

• Assess the strategic and operational tradeoffs being made by the CEO of a company in a growing foodservice sector of an emerging market as he establishes and grows his enterprise

• Build a financial model for outlet operations that identifies key drivers of performance and allows for a comparison between different growth strategies

• Strategically prioritize growth opportunities for a company in response to an influx of new capita

Assess the strategic and operational tradeoffs being made by the CEO of a company in a growing foodservice sector of an emerging market as he establishes and grows his enterprise

Build a financial model for outlet operations that identifies key drivers of performance and allows for a comparison between different growth strategies

Strategically prioritize growth opportunities for a company in response to an influx of new capita