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POLL Do you think restaurants that get bad reviews should be allowed to sue food bloggers? No, restaurants should learn to take constructive feedback It will end up being misused by restaurants to settle scores with food bloggers Why not, food bloggers are influencers and should be held accountable VOTE

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without certification or recognition from the national hospitality body will now be booked for defaming restaurants.The hospitality association has started scanning for blogger community members who mislead customers and public influence opinion about the restaurants.Sanee Awsarmmel, chairperson of the Hospitality Industry of India, said there are over 500 bloggers operating in the city. “Only 25 per cent of them are genuine. How can an engineer or an IT professional judge about food? It is like an engineer treating a patient and not a doctor,” he said.Awsarmmel said the industry is not against bloggers but irresponsible attitude and misuse of their skills.“There are people keeping a close watch on bloggers who visit and review restaurants. Legal action would be taken for those defaming restaurants,” he added.He said that certificates to ‘genuine bloggers’ would be given to recognise them officially.Members of the hospitality industry claim bloggers write popular food reviews on various social media and food delivery platforms, which is causing heavy damage to these entities.“A large number of restaurants are affected by the reviews which are often not genuine. People claiming to be bloggers have skills to take good photographs and creatively write about the food. But that does not mean that they have knowledge about food, the chemistry behind it and also the gastronomical process,” said Shambhu Sharan, executive chef, Emcure group.Sharan said it is important for people writing food reviews to have the knowledge of ingredients, the elements of recipes and culinary basics.“One cannot judge the food based on the presentation and looks. Chefs and experts invest years in learning about food and its facts. But the bloggers writing with little knowledge often mislead people,” he added.Sharan said the bloggers cause damage to the reputation to about 30 per cent of the restaurants.“New bloggers often write something good about a particular. After a few months, they start submitting proposals to new restaurants and writing reviews for some fee or perks. If things go wrong between the management and them, negative reviews start cropping, up impacting the businesses,” he claimed.Sharan said these reviews are read by potential customers who make decisions to visit the restaurants or not. “In other cases too, if the restaurant is not up to the rating, the customers initially visit but once they realise the reviews were overrated, the restaurant starts suffering and over the course of time often shuts down.”The chef said this came to light when many restaurants started coming to chefs like him for consultation and realised what went wrong.“These fake bloggers don’t know any insights about the food. Sometimes it takes three-four hours to make one dish,” said Sanjay S, an industry veteran of 30 yearsSanjay said these bloggers have followers who spread the information, affecting credibility.Citing an example, he said when he started a restaurant, he had many competitors. “It really took a lot of time and struggle to settle and make customers realise the authenticity of the place because I did not opt for getting paid bloggers and trusted my chef and experience,” he said.Another entrepreneur specialising in, Vaidehi Suryawanshi, said, “Bloggers should understand the basics of food. There is no need to glorify it during any review and it is important to inform the public about the health and science aspect of the food being reviewed.”Suryawanshi said that many restaurants also use premixes. “These pre-mixes for gravies or curries are often sourced from a common vendor and in that case, the comparison between the same dishes at two different restaurants is difficult. Such insights and knowledge about the industry can help bring better food reviews and blogging,” she added.Kalyan Karmakar, a food writer, said, “The main issue is that writing a food review is a learning process. A beginner and an experienced person have to go through the process very often as so much are to explore.”The food writer said that a good blogger should also justify why the particular food item is felt to be overpriced or any other negative element.“Lastly, the blogger has to realise that he or she owes the responsibility to the reader. Over a period of time, the followers are expected to increase. Hence, the blogger should understand that credibility of the writer and the restaurant both are at stake,” Karmakar told Mirror.Rushina Ghildiyal, a food blogger and consultant, said, “Bloggers are good influencers but it is a process to evolve. The new generation of bloggers are no experts and would require time to gain it.”