Bell Group to expand bakery business

Sivakasi-based Bell Group, which is into hospitality and education, is planning to expand its bakery business - Puppy's Bakery - by setting up five more outlets in Tamil Nadu by next year.

The group launched Puppy's Bakery in 2008 at Sivakasi and branched out to Madurai in 2010. It currently has around five outlets in these two cities.

It is looking at setting up more outlets in Tier II cities in the state, starting with Coimbatore and Tirupur and later entering into Erode and Salem, and cities including Chennai in the third phase, from the start of next fiscal.

“Bakery business is a highly unorganised sector and we are trying to bring in a chain of outlets with standard format and features,” said Vichitra Rajasingh, CEO of Bell Hotels (P) Ltd.

She said there was a huge opportunity for the company in this and once it reached a size of 10-odd outlets, the company would look at some investors for funds to support further growth. It plans to touch the 10-outlet target by 2013-end.

The base of the bakery business would be in Madurai where it is setting up a central production house. The company plans to invest around Rs 5 crore next year including in the central production house.

It is also entering banqueting services for groups against orders. The focus in the next fiscal year would be on restaurants rather than the lodging part of the hospitality business.

This year, the hospitality division is in a consolidation mode and would continue with the expansion plan of setting up one new hotel or restaurant a year, from the next fiscal, she added.