By Shweta Thakur, IANS
New Delhi : Long before McDonald’s or Pizza Hut, they popularised pizzas, burgers and ice cream sundaes in the Indian capital. And now restaurant chain Nirula’s Group is spreading its branches to smaller cities.
People in Meerut, Pathankot, Ludhiana and Moradabad are among those who can now look forward to Nirula’s food in their home ground.
“The company will open over 144 new outlets by April 2010. Most of them will be in smaller cities,” Sudipta Sen Gupta, senior vice-president (marketing and sales) of Nirula’s group, told IANS. Currently the group has 56 eating outlets. The number would cross 200 by the end of financial year 2009-10.
“We are aiming to entice customers in tier two and three cities because our products and services do not fall in the high-end category and can be relished by everyone. They are affordable, so why should consumers in other cities remain deprived of them?” asked Gupta.
“The initial investment would be no less than Rs.1 billion ($25.3 million),” she added.
To cater to specific customer groups, the company has eating outlets in different formats like the Nirula’s family restaurant, food courts in malls, ice cream and beverage kiosks, express booths in petrol pumps and railway stations, and casual dining outlets called Potpourri.
“Encompassing a mix of all other formats except Potpourri, we would open 14 new outlets by April 2008 in cities like Jaipur, Meerut, Pathankot, Moradabad, Ludhiana, Amritsar, Agra and Gurgaon, to name a few,” said Samir Kuckerja, CEO and managing director of the company.
“To start with, each city will get at least one outlet,” he added.
Come March and the company will enter Mumbai with Potpourri as its first outlet. In the next three years, the number of Potpourri outlets will escalate to five.
“By end-April 2010, Delhi and Mumbai will get over 50 more restaurants in all types of formats,” said Kuckerja.
He also said that opening a Potpourri requires an investment of over Rs.30 million, while a family restaurant needs an investment of more than Rs.10 million, food courts more than Rs.8 million and kiosks over Rs.1.2 million.
As for going global, Gupta said: “We have plans to move to the international market for which the US, Britain and the Middle East are best markets to start with. However, we have not zeroed in on anything yet.”