Around 75 retailers that operate 200 brands have written a letter to mall owners, seen by TOI, stating that revenue-share percentage should be a flat percentage depending on the category of stores. They suggested, for instance, revenue-sharing percentage for vanilla brands should be 10-12%, including common area maintenance (CAM), while for fast food brands and large format lifestyle stores, it should be 7-8%.

It can be noted that shopping centres and malls, which tend to attract a lot of crowds, have been shut since mid-March, much before the lockdown was announced and if the social distancing strategies continue post lockdown as well, such facilities are unlikely to open.

The post pandemic society will witness a change in consumer behavior and overall lifestyle. It is estimated that consumers will be extremely cautious with their spending. The spending on luxury, travel, hospitality, and movies, fine dine, white goods, expensive gadgets, among others and see a drop.

Last week, 195 retailers and restaurants including Future Group, Aditya Birla Fashion, Arvind Brands, Domino’s Pizza, Adidas and Levi’s wrote a common letter to mall owners for a “collaborative dialogue” between shopping centres and tenants.

Post lockdown relaxation, consumers say they will prefer buying items of need via local stores (instore or delivery) and ecommerce sites while only 4 per cent say will go to the mall to buy.

Top officials close to the development told ET that HUL will train a large set of advisors and beauty consultants, numbering about 1,500, to become entrepreneurs so that they can set up their own businesses.

SCAI, which counts Nexus Malls, Prestige, Infiniti, DLF and Lulu among its members, has also proposed using only 50% of the parking areas and not allowing any events and promotions to take place in the common areas to prevent large gatherings.

While big-box retailers that enjoy a revenue-sharing model with malls will have some cushion to absorb the impact of the lockdown, smaller brands and restaurants may have to pay the price by reducing the number of outlets.

The government feels this will allow shopping and leisure activities to start up while maintaining physical distancing as traffic will be less than usual and easy to control. On Wednesday, Madhya Pradesh notified retail stores to open from 6am until midnight.

Large operators of malls such as Xander-backed Virtuous Retail, Select Group, Phoenix Group and Blackstone-backed Nexus have not waived rentals for their tenants.

Disney Springs vice president Matt Simon posted Thursday on the official Disney Parks Blog that the area will reopen May 20 with enhanced safety measures to help prevent the spread of the coronavirus.

"We have seen strong consumer demand, particularly in March and April but the split between defensive buying and higher levels of underlying consumption is unclear," Chief Executive Laxman Narasimhan said in a statement.

"There are two big trends emerging. One is the relevance of the humble grocer and people have realised that they are so close to you… proximity, and (that’s) such a big benefit. The second would be on ecommerce. With people becoming more averse to stepping out, they would like to place the order from home and receive it at home. "

It is the first time since the nation’s favourite chocolate bar hit the shelves in India over 70 years ago, that Cadbury Dairy Milk has replaced its logo with the words ‘Thank You’.

The FMCG sector includes non-durable household goods such as packaged food, beverages, toiletries and other consumables that are sold at a relatively low cost. The slowdown was steeper in the urban markets compared to the rural markets, across the four zones, the report said.

The company which retails Savlon range of sanitisers, has stepped up production at the facility in Himachal Pradesh to produce an additional 1.25 lakh litres.

Over the past few weeks, chief executives of Unilever, Mondelez, Hershey's Procter & Gamble, Coca-Cola and Kimberly Clark have said India’s Covid-19 lockdown protocols had led to severe supply chain disruptions and labour shortages, hurting business in the key market.

Mondelez, owner of Cadbury’s, said its sales in the first phase of the lockdown was reduced to nil due to closure of plants, lack of have people from the distribution centers and non-availability of trucks.

FMCG major Hindustan Unilever on Thursday reported a decline of 3.93 per cent in consolidated profit to Rs 1,512 crore for the fourth quarter, impacted by the coronavirus crisis from mid-March.

The workforce problems at two ITC food plants - one in Pune in the western state of Maharashtra and another in the southern state of Karnataka - show how labour issues weigh on Indian firms after a nationwide coronavirus lockdown forced thousands of workers to go back to their villages.

It had posted a net profit of Rs 403 crore in the corresponding quarter last year.

LG, Samsung, Vivo and Xiaomi are also rolling out hyperlocal sales platforms that will connect their offline stores to consumers searching products online so that the outlet nearest to the consumer can deliver the order, industry executives said.

The maker of Dettol and Lizol disinfectant reported best ever global sales growth for the March 2020 quarter as customers stocked up on hygiene products amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, with like for like growth up 13%, higher market share and strong growth in e-commerce.

Total income during the latest quarter stood at Rs 1,724.51 crore, up 24.78 per cent from Rs 1,382 crore in the year-ago period , Varun Beverages said in a regulatory filing.

PepsiCo India had volunteered to support the scale up of India's COVID-19 testing capacity through support provided to FIND.

‘We have exited April at 70-80% of our run rate, which we were doing last year.’

In view of the fresh guidelines issued by the Ministry of Home Affairs on May 1 and after evaluating the ground situation, the company has resumed production at all manufacturing locations, Dabur India said in a regulatory filing.

The 5.7% stake in Hindustan Unilever that is now on the market, was accepted by GSK as payment for the sale of the malted drink brand and other nutrition brands to Unilever, agreed in late 2018.

These channel partnerships have been done in a phased manner, with Flipkart being the first e-commerce platform to enable the availability of its essential products in Mumbai, Bengaluru and Delhi.

GlaxoSmithKline and Horlicks have sold 5.7 per cent equity of HUL worth Rs 26,000 crore on Thursday to domestic and foreign investors.

Branded products in falooda mixes, Bombay halwa, phirni and certain instant curry masalas drew a significant chunk of their sales during Ramzan. Sales of these products for some companies are only half of what was clocked in the same period during Ramzan last year.

With this partnership, MTR products such as masalas, spices, Ready-To-Eat meals and breakfast mixes will be accessible through MTR stores and kirana tabs on Swiggy.

The survey, conducted by YouGov, an Internet-based market research and data analytics firm, showed that between March 15-April 16 this year, Zomato witnessed a weakening customer base from 46.3 to 41.7 whereas for Swiggy, the scores were from 48.8 to 42.4.

Restaurants in the city are looking to slash in-house dining capacities by 40 per cent to ensure social distancing norms are followed and also ramp up their tech infrastructure to handle more orders online.

KFC India managing director Samir Menon said: “Subdued growth in March and softness is on account of the lockdown. We continue to operate around the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic with our delivery business only amidst the lockdown situation in the country as we comply with all regulatory directives.”

40% Restaurants Face a Permanent Lockout; some entrepreneurs tweaking business models, selling DIY meal kits, attempting delivery.

“While during the early days of lockdown basic essentials got sold, with time some discretionary sales are coming back,” said Devendra Chawla, MD at Nature’s Basket and Spencer’s Retail that saw 30-60% growth in sales for cold cuts, exotic vegetables, assorted breads and cakes, cookies, international sauces, organic range of staples in last ten days.

“There is absolutely no income coming our way due to the Covid-induced lockdown for over a month. As a result, most companies are facing the problem of paying the employee salaries in full for the month of April,” said National Restaurant Association of India president Anurag Katriar.

The staff delivering the meals wear protective gear like masks and gloves to ensure safety. Since Covid – 19 outbreak, Burger King says that it has further strengthened its restaurant procedures around food safety, cleanliness and hygiene and increased its sanitization frequency in all restaurants across the country.

Under the banner Rise4Restaurants, consumers can buy vouchers from any member of the National Restaurant Association of India and redeem them for a 25% discount on bills once restaurants open.

How to keep customers’ cravings alive has become a challenge for restaurants.

The company said it would announce the locations of the restaurants next week, with plans to open them on May 13.

The association has stated that allowing liquidation of the unsold stock will minimize the losses and introduce working capital by encashment of the existing liquor stock.

As per industry estimates, any standalone restaurant from an established chain could have alcohol inventory of ₹10-25 lakh lying with it. For five-star chains, the stocks are worth much more.

Impossible Foods expects to expand its retail footprint fifty-fold this year, it said, as demand for plant-based meat soars both in retail and restaurants among health and environment conscious customers.

"We believe that a technology-enabled home delivery based solution can promote responsible consumption of alcohol," Mohit Gupta, Zomato's CEO for food delivery, wrote in a business proposal to ISWAI.

The US burger and fries giant has joined other restaurant chains including Jubilant FoodWorks-operated Domino's Pizza, Tata Starbucks and Speciality Restaurants in seeking waivers from landlords and mall owners.

While withdrawing its forecast for two- to three-year sales growth, Domino's said U.S. same-store sales were up 7.1% in late March and much of April, as diners under lockdown ordered home delivery more often.

Jaimini will be joining Pesto Tech, a career accelerator start-up, as their co-founder, Swiggy said in a statement.

The order directed pubs, clubs, bars and lodges to allow only one customer to enter their respective premises at a time and leave soon after purchasing liquor at the maximum retail price (MRP).