Post match, stadium hosts a ‘flash-food fest’

Thiruvananthapuram: If one of the memes that flooded social media following the quick wrap of a 50-over match was about request for another T-20, sports hub did witness an impromptu event post the match; a free-for-all food fest.
Around 20 caterers, snack vendors, prisons’ department, Kudumbashree mission and Milma were dealing with huge quantity of unsold food they had prepared for dinner and the only option was to give it for free rather than throwing it away.

Only 4,000 tickets remained unsold and they were supposed to serve food to nearly 35,000 viewers. “The government agencies had bagged the contract for supply of food to around 27,000 spectators in the upper tier. Naturally they would have come prepared with such a huge stock and we had no way to compensate them. The lower tier was given to private parties. Both suffered losses,” said V G Raghunathan, convener, food committee, Kerala cricket association (KCA).

The caterers, both government and private agencies, had participated in expression of interest and paid Rs 25,000 as security deposit. This year the food suppliers were asked to quote the prices at which they intended to sell food to prevent fleecing and the initial number of 30 dropped to 20 by the end of finalizing contracts. Milma did not suffer much loss and they had bagged the exclusive contract for selling ice cream in all tiers. KCA was keen on promoting government agencies this year to bolster their finances but it did not work in their favour, an official said. KCA also gave space for free and no rent was levied from any of the caterers.

Even KCA, which had arranged special spread for VIPs and guests, made it open to all by evening.

Prisons’ department sold 1,000 biriyanis for lunch but had to deal with left over Chappathi and chicken curry it had prepared for around 3,000 people. “We gave all the unsold dinner packets to the cafeteria,” said a senior prison official.

Kudumbashree had expected a sale of around Rs 10 lakh, however, by noon they could barely cross Rs 2 lakh sales. The officials however said that they had brought together 11 Kudumbashree units in a common kitchen and as soon as it appeared that match won’t last till night, message was passed not to make much for dinner. “We didn’t suffer much loss and all our units were happy enough to sell off their snacks by evening,” said an official who co-ordinated catering for Kudumbasree.

Kudumbashree had come prepared to serve lunch to 7,000 people and that number could be touched by noon. As for dinner, they were expecting somewhere around 7,000 people and when they saw that the match was coming to a close earlier than expected, the units were directed to stall cooking. “Yesterday’s rain and slightly bleak morning also acted as warnings for us. That’s why we worked in a common area so that communicating messages depending upon progress of match was easy,” said the official.