How Culinary Goes Survive in Indonesia's "Food Discovery" Segment

As a search platform and review places to eat in big cities of Indonesia since 2015, GoKuliner is now one of the few platforms food discovery remaining in Indonesia.

Founded by Oswin Liandow, GoKuliner claims to be the only platform food discovery with a growing number of objective restaurant reviews and traffic on a platform that is still quite high.

To DailySocial, Oswin revealed, this condition had been predicted from the start. As a discovery platform specifically for restaurants and places to eat, according to him, only local players are able to survive and eventually become "champions".

"PergiKuliner has been trying to focus on users. For restaurants, if they have a good business and quality food, of course it is very relevant to be our partner because we try to provide objective reviews," said Oswin.

This year, GoingKuliner has a number of plans to develop the company's business, starting from expanding to other big Indonesian cities to launching new innovations that are relevant for its consumers.

Surviving during a pandemic

Even though I experienced difficulties during the pandemic and was forced to do it employee efficiency, early 2022 is the right time for companies to return to work and try to recover. Still serving the Jabodetabek, Bandung and Surabaya areas, at the end of this year the company plans to expand its business to Bali, Makassar and Medan. This plan had actually been planned since 2020, but was postponed due to the pandemic conditions.

Although it could be a curation process and listing where food is done online, according to Oswin, it would be more ideal if there were a local team placed in each city.

"What's interesting, after I went directly into the field, not all of the recommended tourist cities were ideal for us to target. Yogyakarta, for example, even though there are many typical places to eat, because most of the prices are quite affordable, the culinary tourism atmosphere isn't really felt," said Oswin. .

Another thing that Oswin noticed was that during the pandemic, more and more MSMEs were selling food without having outlets offline or choice dine in. This concept, although it has the potential to enter listing them, is not a priority for GoKuliner. This type is more suitable to be found and explored through food delivery platforms.

"In Indonesia itself, even though there is still a pandemic, many restaurants have reopened and are being visited by direct visitors. I think now is the ideal time for the restaurant business to grow and provide opportunities for business people who want to set up new restaurants," said Oswin .

As a media platform, the way of monetizing the GoKuliner is advertising for restaurant owners. The concept varies, whether the restaurant wants to behighlight from location, menu, and more.

This method is actually carried out by various similar platforms, including Zomato and OpenRice which has left Indonesia.

Nonetheless, GoKuliner claims to work with restaurants that already have good popularity, in terms of price, location, to the taste and quality of the food. They carry out a curation process for anyone who wants to advertise and can refuse if they don't meet the requirements.

"I try to emphasize to the team that our mission is to provide objective restaurant reviews and recommendations. Making our platform an accurate reference for users," said Oswin.

GoKuliner has received funding from investors, but Oswin is reluctant to say further how much investment he received and who the investors involved are. The pandemic has indeed postponed various company plans, including profit projections. They are targeting to return to profitability by the end of this year.

Launch Collective Vouchers

To increase product choices, GoKuliner is preparing to launch a number of new innovations. One of the products the company launched this month is "Collective Vouchers". Collective Vouchers is a restaurant promotion program with a system group buying. The more people who buy, the higher the voucher value will be. Collective Vouchers are a way to save money on dining out at restaurants and bring family, friends and colleagues together online.

“GoKuliner is the first to launch restaurant vouchers with the system group buying. "So this Collective Voucher encourages people to invite their friends to buy vouchers at the same restaurant so that they get the maximum voucher value," said Oswin.

Collective Vouchers can be purchased via the GoKuliner website and application every 16th of every month at a price of IDR 20.000,00 to IDR 150.000,00. It is claimed that a group buying scheme like this can benefit both parties, the buyer and the business owner.

The reputation of restaurant partners will be protected because increasing the voucher value does not reduce the selling value of restaurant products and can be used to get a virality effect because buyers are encouraged to spread information and invite their friends to buy vouchers.

At first glance, this product is similar to what Groupon offered, which was popular in the mid-2010s. What is different is that the value of the voucher will continue to be stable, and even tend to increase, if there are more buyers.

"Seeing that the pandemic conditions are gradually getting better, we want to invite the public to return dine in in restaurants to revive the culinary business which has been impacted by the pandemic for 2 years. "This is the main goal of the Collective Voucher program," said Oswin.

Apart from launching new products, GoKuliner also plans to launch services food delivery with a different concept. Oswin is reluctant to reveal further, because this innovation is said to be still in the development stage.

At the end of 2022, GoingKuliner will also launch another new product, namely loyalty programme.

"We will collect the network later coffee shop in Indonesia. Those who have repeatedly visited [network] coffee shop [the same] will be given the opportunity to collect stamp and on the sixth purchase, for example, you will be given free coffee," concluded Oswin.