KOCHI: Lockdown restrictions and social distancing have reduced our chances of dining in at restaurants and hotels. However, this start-up based in Infopark, Kochi, has come up with a first-of-its kind e-menu mobile application ‘EM’, which offers a permanent solution for restaurants to embrace the new normal, and welcome customers back for a safe meal. Many popular restaurants and food courts in Thiruvananthapuram, Kochi and Kozhikode are all set to adopt the E-Menu.
Concept Carton Technologies Pvt Ltd—a digital marketing and mobile application development company—is behind this innovative concept that would help customers avoid handling a hard menu and make digital transactions. This would help the process entirely contactless. Kiran Eldho, CEO & co-founder of Concept Carton Technologies, said that E-Menu would revolutionise the dine-in experience in a post-Covid-19 world. The company, which has several clients in the hotel industry, is all set to launch the application this week.
“The demo is online starting Monday. We are into digital marketing, and hence has an already established client base. Many of our clients in the hotel industry have agreed to adopt this application,” says Kiran. He projects that the hotel industry cannot survive without dine-ins and currently, most establishments rely on parcel services.
“The physical menu is considered as a carrier of germs and viruses. We had considered this idea even before Covid-19. Back then, our plan was to develop an application for resorts to take food, and booking orders online. Then the pandemic hit, and we decided to focus on the E-Menu, which until then, was just one of the components of the whole project,” says Kiran.
It took nearly three months for the team to develop the E-Menu. According to Kiran, the new application would enable restaurants to serve more customers and avoid long queues. “The customer can just scan the QR code at the table and browse through the menu and order the dishes. The customer will get a heads up when the food is going to be served. It would be just like using a food delivery app,” he adds..
Oberon Food Court (Kochi), Pathiri’s (Thiruvananthapuram), Big Wong (Bengaluru), Ikkayees (Kozhikode), and Olive Downtown (Kadavanthra, Kochi) are among the popular restaurants adopting the E-Menu. Benher Issac and Farhan Mammu are the other two co-founders of the company offering the E-menu.