CG Group to invest Rs 1,000 crore by 2020

Known in India for its Wai Wai brand of noodles, the group has set up a Rs 250 cr production unit

The Kathmandu-headquartered CG Group is planning to invest Rs 1,000 crore in India over the next three years to ramp up its operations in the country. The diversified conglomerate, which has interests in widespread sectors like hotels and resorts, real estate, education and tobacco, is entering the food and beverages segment in the country in September.

While the firm is known for its Wai Wai noodles brand, it has set up a production unit at Rajasthan with an investment of Rs 250 crore to support its plan of becoming a full-fledged F&B player, Varun Chaudhary, executive director, CG Corp Global told Business Standard.

“We will be entering in the food space with ready to eat products, under the Wai Wai Dhaba brand name, and beverages which are currently only available at Wai Wai City outlets. Other product categories include snacks under the brand name Papa Punte for retail sales and sauces, spices, condiments, pickles and processed raw materials for B2B (business to business) sales. We also have interests in infrastructure, real estate and will be evaluating other JVs which combine our expertise with reach and production in India,” he said.

CG Group has eight manufacturing units here to produce noodles. It now plans to produce branded commodity items like pulses, oils and atta, apart from packaged food and beverages, at the unit in Rajasthan.

It has started a chain of restaurants – Wai Wai City – in Delhi, Noida, Pune, Bengaluru and Siliguri over the past few months and plans to take the number of outlets to 500 by 2020. The group plans to open 75 outlets under franchise model by end 2017. To ramp up its upcoming F&B business, Chaudhary aims to leverage CG Group’s distribution coverage in remote and hilly areas. Currently, its noodles reaches over a million stores.

While, the group clocks nearly Rs 13,000 crore ($2 billion) in yearly sales, its business in India remains confined to noodles. And its Rs 600 crore sales here form less than five per cent of its global revenue. However, with the investments lined up and plans to enter a number of growing sectors, Chaudhary expects to improve that record.

“We aim to be an Rs 32,000 crore ($5 billion) conglomerate by 2020. This will be achieved through expansion of the core brands to new markets joint ventures for our hospitality vertical, brand extensions like Wai Wai City and Wai Wai Dhaba in the retail food market and success of our integrated food parks,” he said.