Lite Bite Foods to increase focus on QSRs

Burgers and pizza retail are among the few areas the company is eyeing besides Indian street food

Multi-restaurant chain Lite Bite Foods will increase its focus on quick service restaurants (QSR).

Promoted by Amit Burman and Rohit Aggarwal, the company wishes to expand its presence in the retailing of food and beverages (F&B). Aggarwal, director, told Business Standard the company was closely eyeing the burger and pizza retail space. “Our presence in QSR has not been that aggressive. We have been focusing more on the casual dining space. The QSR segment is where we need to look deeper. We find the burger and pizza formats interesting. We think it will work. Also, Indian street food is something we think will work.”

Lite Bite is looking to close FY15 with a turnover of Rs 135 crore. It already has an Indian street food chain called Street Foods by Punjab Grill, located mainly in Mumbai and the National Capital Region. Lite Bite proposes to expand this aggressively in the coming months.

Parallelly, the company will add coffee to its menu at Baker Street, its restaurant chain promoting bakery and pastry products. Outlets of Baker Street can be found at the Mumbai and Delhi airports, as well as malls in Gurgaon. Aggarwal says his company sees huge potential for a bakery chain in the country and will promote it aggressively.

Lite Bite might also ink franchisee agreements with a few more international brands. It already is a franchisee of US fast food chain Subway in India, beside, Italian pizza and pasta chain Pino’s and Barcelona-based FrescCo, which is into Mediterranean cuisine. “Eating out as a concept has been growing (in India). This opens myriad possibilities for us as players in the F&B space,” Aggarwal says.

According to retail consultancy Technopak, the F&B retail market is $2.5-3 billion (Rs 15,000-18,000 crore) and is expected to grow to $8-8.5 bn (Rs 48,000-50,000 crore) by 2020, driven by the growth of quick service or fast food chains.

Most major fast food brands across categories such as burgers (McDonald’s, Burger King), donuts (Dunkin Donuts, Krispy Kreme) and pizzas (Domino’s) have established base in India in the past decade and a half. This is in addition to coffee retail houses such as Starbucks, Costa, Gloria Jeans and Di Bella.

While the recent quarters have been challenging for F&B retailers as consumers cut back on discretionary spending, the trend is expected to change as an urban recovery sets in.

Aggarwal says he is targeting sales of Rs 200 crore in FY16, on the back of his firm’s expansion plans into QSR. Lite Bite is also taking some of its casual dining brands such as Punjab Grill into international markets in a bid to drive growth. "We opened a Punjab Grill in Singapore four years ago. This year, we will add outlets in Bangkok, Washington DC, Jeddah and Abu Dhabi," he said. In India, there are nine Punjab Grill restaurants located in Delhi, Mumbai, Pune, Bangalore and Gurgaon.