Behind the scenes look to the success of Philips FOODATHON 2012

When you wanted to plan a party at a lounge, how did you research for which lounge to select? When you wanted to buy a sugar free cake for your dad who's diabetic, whose advice did you take? When you wanted to check the prices of a rest-o-bar, before treating your friends there, where did you check the details? When you wanted to check recipes to make a nice chocolate cake at home, where did you look?

My bet is, for most of you (just as it was for me) the answers for the above is online. Online is changing the game for food and beverage consumer purchases. This would be with respect to selection of a restaurant, selection of which dish to have (and not to have too) at a restaurant, where to buy good cutlery, how to cook regular meals in a healthy way, which are some must have kitchen appliances and so on.

There are aspects of food so minute, which are being impacted by the online world today, that couldn’t have been conceived just 2 years ago. For example the entire app economy that has developed around food. You go abroad and are looking for some vegetarian restaurants in that vicinity and you can use Foodspotting; you can go into a Yum Yum Tree restaurant in Delhi and check in via Foursquare and get a discount; you can capture all your food/ meal memories in an app called Evernote Food. Heck, you could even make a table reservation via BBM today! Same is the case with food plating and food photography; the intricacies within both are just growing more complicated by the day.

With FOODATHON, the aim was to have an interesting and fun event that had representation from maximum angles of food (like mentioned above), rather than the single focus events that ordinarily happen; and do this with an audience that (1) are fueling this online food economy and (2) have the largest possible audience as possible, from this category; so much so that it resembles a marathon.

So October 27^th became the day of the PHILIPS FOODATHON, Delhi’s first such food marathon, sponsored by Philips, The [V] Spot Café + Bar and Dunkin Donuts, when 50+ people, consisting of food and lifestyle bloggers and food community owners came together for the sake of this event. The event was organized by 20:20 MSL, in consultation with Chef At Large.

The event saw Sid Khullar, Editor, Chef At Large, speaking about the way food blogging has emerged; ace photographer Hemant Sud, talk about the intricacies of food photography and Darren Conole, Executive Chef, Shangri la, share his experience on the way food could be plated. The session with Mr. Sud and Chef Conole, could totally have been termed as the show stopper performance, if this were a fashion show. The audience was totally awed by their knowledge, wit and charm.

From L to R: Sid Khullar, Hemant Sud and Darren Conole

But if there was one thing that blew people’s imagination at the event, it was the Philips Air Fryer! People who knew about the air fryer also still stood in disbelief that that gorgeous kitchen appliance could cook without oil!

The [V] Spot Café + Bar, Gurgaon, was an interesting venue for the FOODATHON, as most people who came (including people from Gurgaon) hadn’t been there.

Being a Steve Jobs inspired bunch of people, we had to keep a one last thing surprise for people and that was a box full of donuts from Dunkin! And these were no ordinary donuts; it was a box full of their new Diwali collection that the company had been kind enough to give us to sample at the event.

Priyanka Sachhar (@twilightfairy) with her box of Dunkin Donuts

The event was a success for me, because the event buzz managed to bring together an amazing audience (in terms of size and quality), the amazing feedback people gave (both during and post the event) and the fact that the event (#Philipsfoodathon) trended on No.1 spot in Delhi on Twitter. Also, after the successful BLOGATHON I co-organized in May this year, this became another feather in my cap.

There were tons of learning from the event too, that a lot of people (like I’ve mentioned above as well) have been kind enough to share. We’ve noted it all down and will ensure that all those loose ends will be ironed out in the future. I can’t wait to cook more events, small and big, to extend the FOODATHON flavor to maximum people possible.

Our 20:20 MSL team that put the PHILIPS FOODATHON together. Also in the photo (2nd last from right) is Sweta Ojha, Marketing Manager, The [V] Spot Cafe + Bar

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