 "The real foodie")
Amit Burman has quietly become one of India's biggest restaurateurs. He tells Bhupesh Bhandari about his new ventures
Scalini is a mid-scale Italian restaurant on Walton Street, London, between Knightsbridge and South Kensington. It is spread over 3,000 square feet, can seat 80 guests and boasts of a "VIP Room". The food and wine lists are extensive. Reviews on tripadvisor, the travel portal, range from "Italian at its best" and "fantastic" to "must have been good back in the day" and "poor". It's particularly popular with Indians, Arabs and Americans. The restaurant now has a new owner: Amit Burman, the vice-chairman of Dabur. The Burmans have a home in London. Burman would eat at Scalini regularly during his visits there, about twice a week. One day, a friend informed him that Mario Pagetti and Valerio Cardozo, the two owners of Scalini, were looking to sell. Burman quickly hired lawyers and accountants, and about a month ago, bought out the partners.
Quietly, Burman has emerged as one of the biggest restaurateurs in the country. He runs quick-service restaurants and casual-dining restaurants (not fine dining because that, Burman says, is not a scalable business). His food ranges from a box of rajma-chawal for Rs 25 at Street Foods of India to a meal at Scalini for the equivalent of Rs 2,500. The size of his eateries varies from 200-square-feet Subway outlets to the 3,000-square-feet Punjab Grill at Juhu in Mumbai. His 60 restaurants (Punjab Grill for north Indian cuisine, Zambar for coastal food, Asia Seven for Southeast Asian food, Fresc Co for Italian and Mediterranean, Pino's for pasta and pizza, coffee house Baker Street, Subway and Street Foods of India) will fetch him a turnover of Rs 120 crore in 2012-13. In 2013-14, Burman says, the turnover will double. A large chunk of the new business will come from the new terminal at the Mumbai airport where Burman has to open 30 restaurants in the 12 months starting September 2013. With gross profit margins in the range of 20-30 per cent in casual dining and 15-18 in quick service, Burman makes a neat profit. Even otherwise, he is rich: his stake in Dabur is worth over Rs 3,200 crore.
Burman's father, Gyan Chand, was the man who transformed Dabur from a maker of Ayurveda medicine to a fast-moving consumer goods company and modernised its production facilities. He was instrumental in shifting the group's headquarters from Kolkata to Delhi. In September 2001, weeks before he was to take over as the chairman of the company, Gyan Chand died. Burman started in the foods business of Dabur. He built it from scratch till it reached almost Rs 350 crore in size (it is now almost Rs 650 crore). He experimented with various products - lemon extract, cooking pastes et cetera - but the one that really clicked was Real fruit juices. Some years ago, the Burmans decided that they would not be involved in the day-to-day functioning of Dabur, though they would serve on the board of directors. All Burmans are encouraged to start their own ventures; those who want can train in Dabur for not more than a year.
Burman tried his hand in the internet space (a website for young housewives), car dealership (Audi) and healthcare (a birthing boutique in south Delhi that was sold to Fortis), but found his true calling in food. "I am a foodie," says Burman. If he likes a muffin at a bakery, he is likely to take one for his chef and ask him to analyse it. He takes pictures, on his cellphone, of food and cocktails he likes in restaurants across the world to help his team improve their presentation. His wife, Divya, blogs on food and has recently started her own line of sugar-free and dark chocolates, Guilt Free by Divya Burman, which are sold through Baker Street.
It started with Subway some ten years ago. "I had exposure to Subway during my studies and work experience in the US," says Burman. When Subway started a store at Saket in South Delhi, Burman and his friend, Rohit Agarwal, had gone there after watching a movie. While eating their sandwiches, the two decided to apply for a franchise. They were called to Milford in Connecticut for training. "We had to work there for two weeks on the theory part as well as the practical part. The practical part included chopping the vegetables, sweeping the floor, making sandwiches and opening and closing the store," says Burman. At that time, Subway allowed franchisees two local sandwiches after they were approved by the development agent. "We developed internally a kala chana sandwich," says Burman. "We discussed it with the agent, but such things don't go very easily."
From there, Lite Bite Foods, the company promoted by Burman (he's the majority partner) and Agarwal diversified into the other formats. "In India, 80 per cent of casual dining is North Indian, South Indian, Chinese and Italian food; and we have it all covered," says he. Punjab Grill is the largest contributor to the business. In early 2011, Burman was approached by a Singapore-based businessman who wanted to open Punjab Grill at the Marina Bay Sands. From a franchisee, he became a franchiser. Next, Radisson in Bangkok was looking for an Indian restaurant. In India, it has collaborated with The Great Kabab Factory. Burman knew he had a handicap but still flew down the Radisson team to India, took it to his restaurants in Delhi and Mumbai, and convinced them to go with Punjab Grill. An Abu Dhabi Sheikh sent his emissary to Burman after he had eaten at Punjab Grill in Bangkok - he wanted one in his mall in Abu Dhabi. Burman convinced the emissary to allot space for Zambar and Asia Seven as well. Burman charges all franchisees $50,000 upfront and a 10 per cent cut on sales (8 per cent royalty and 2 per cent for local marketing expenses).
He now wants to do the same with Scalini, the Italian restaurant he has bought in London. He has signed a two-year contract with the people who work there so that they don't leave overnight and throw the operations out of gear. "I don't want to fix what isn't broke. My story is to take the franchise outside the UK," says Burman. The cities he is looking at include Delhi, Mumbai, Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Moscow. "People in Shanghai and Beijing will lap it up," says he.
Burman also owns a company called Nature's Bounty which started out by importing wines into India. These wines are priced below Rs 1,000 and are therefore not well-known names. Burman thinks that once local wines decide to go abroad, India will have to bring down the duties on imported wine which currently add up to 150 per cent, and that's when his wines will sell briskly.
Meanwhile, to leverage his distribution network, he started to sell imported rum, vodka and cognac. Last year, he tied up with the NRI owners of Kuch Nai Scotch whiskey to sell in India. It sells about 450 cases a month. All are priced in the affordable category. This is a business Burman understands well. When he was studying in the US, he worked part-time as a bartender. While looking after Dabur's food business, he led the campaign to sell Real fruit juices to cocktail mixers at bars. And these days, he is trying out Vodka with coconut water that Dabur plans to launch shortly under the Real umbrella. "It tastes very nice," says Burman.
Scalini is a mid-scale Italian restaurant on Walton Street, London, between Knightsbridge and South Kensington. It is spread over 3,000 square feet, can seat 80 guests and boasts of a "VIP Room". The food and wine lists are extensive. Reviews on tripadvisor, the travel portal, range from "Italian at its best" and "fantastic" to "must have been good back in the day" and "poor". It's particularly popular with Indians, Arabs and Americans. The restaurant now has a new owner: Amit Burman, the vice-chairman of Dabur. The Burmans have a home in London. Burman would eat at Scalini regularly during his visits there, about twice a week. One day, a friend informed him that Mario Pagetti and Valerio Cardozo, the two owners of Scalini, were looking to sell. Burman quickly hired lawyers and accountants, and about a month ago, bought out the partners.
Quietly, Burman has emerged as one of the biggest restaurateurs in the country. He runs quick-service restaurants and casual-dining restaurants (not fine dining because that, Burman says, is not a scalable business). His food ranges from a box of rajma-chawal for Rs 25 at Street Foods of India to a meal at Scalini for the equivalent of Rs 2,500. The size of his eateries varies from 200-square-feet Subway outlets to the 3,000-square-feet Punjab Grill at Juhu in Mumbai. His 60 restaurants (Punjab Grill for north Indian cuisine, Zambar for coastal food, Asia Seven for Southeast Asian food, Fresc Co for Italian and Mediterranean, Pino's for pasta and pizza, coffee house Baker Street, Subway and Street Foods of India) will fetch him a turnover of Rs 120 crore in 2012-13. In 2013-14, Burman says, the turnover will double. A large chunk of the new business will come from the new terminal at the Mumbai airport where Burman has to open 30 restaurants in the 12 months starting September 2013. With gross profit margins in the range of 20-30 per cent in casual dining and 15-18 in quick service, Burman makes a neat profit. Even otherwise, he is rich: his stake in Dabur is worth over Rs 3,200 crore.
Burman's father, Gyan Chand, was the man who transformed Dabur from a maker of Ayurveda medicine to a fast-moving consumer goods company and modernised its production facilities. He was instrumental in shifting the group's headquarters from Kolkata to Delhi. In September 2001, weeks before he was to take over as the chairman of the company, Gyan Chand died. Burman started in the foods business of Dabur. He built it from scratch till it reached almost Rs 350 crore in size (it is now almost Rs 650 crore). He experimented with various products - lemon extract, cooking pastes et cetera - but the one that really clicked was Real fruit juices. Some years ago, the Burmans decided that they would not be involved in the day-to-day functioning of Dabur, though they would serve on the board of directors. All Burmans are encouraged to start their own ventures; those who want can train in Dabur for not more than a year.
Burman tried his hand in the internet space (a website for young housewives), car dealership (Audi) and healthcare (a birthing boutique in south Delhi that was sold to Fortis), but found his true calling in food. "I am a foodie," says Burman. If he likes a muffin at a bakery, he is likely to take one for his chef and ask him to analyse it. He takes pictures, on his cellphone, of food and cocktails he likes in restaurants across the world to help his team improve their presentation. His wife, Divya, blogs on food and has recently started her own line of sugar-free and dark chocolates, Guilt Free by Divya Burman, which are sold through Baker Street.
* * *
It started with Subway some ten years ago. "I had exposure to Subway during my studies and work experience in the US," says Burman. When Subway started a store at Saket in South Delhi, Burman and his friend, Rohit Agarwal, had gone there after watching a movie. While eating their sandwiches, the two decided to apply for a franchise. They were called to Milford in Connecticut for training. "We had to work there for two weeks on the theory part as well as the practical part. The practical part included chopping the vegetables, sweeping the floor, making sandwiches and opening and closing the store," says Burman. At that time, Subway allowed franchisees two local sandwiches after they were approved by the development agent. "We developed internally a kala chana sandwich," says Burman. "We discussed it with the agent, but such things don't go very easily."
From there, Lite Bite Foods, the company promoted by Burman (he's the majority partner) and Agarwal diversified into the other formats. "In India, 80 per cent of casual dining is North Indian, South Indian, Chinese and Italian food; and we have it all covered," says he. Punjab Grill is the largest contributor to the business. In early 2011, Burman was approached by a Singapore-based businessman who wanted to open Punjab Grill at the Marina Bay Sands. From a franchisee, he became a franchiser. Next, Radisson in Bangkok was looking for an Indian restaurant. In India, it has collaborated with The Great Kabab Factory. Burman knew he had a handicap but still flew down the Radisson team to India, took it to his restaurants in Delhi and Mumbai, and convinced them to go with Punjab Grill. An Abu Dhabi Sheikh sent his emissary to Burman after he had eaten at Punjab Grill in Bangkok - he wanted one in his mall in Abu Dhabi. Burman convinced the emissary to allot space for Zambar and Asia Seven as well. Burman charges all franchisees $50,000 upfront and a 10 per cent cut on sales (8 per cent royalty and 2 per cent for local marketing expenses).
He now wants to do the same with Scalini, the Italian restaurant he has bought in London. He has signed a two-year contract with the people who work there so that they don't leave overnight and throw the operations out of gear. "I don't want to fix what isn't broke. My story is to take the franchise outside the UK," says Burman. The cities he is looking at include Delhi, Mumbai, Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Moscow. "People in Shanghai and Beijing will lap it up," says he.
Burman also owns a company called Nature's Bounty which started out by importing wines into India. These wines are priced below Rs 1,000 and are therefore not well-known names. Burman thinks that once local wines decide to go abroad, India will have to bring down the duties on imported wine which currently add up to 150 per cent, and that's when his wines will sell briskly.
Meanwhile, to leverage his distribution network, he started to sell imported rum, vodka and cognac. Last year, he tied up with the NRI owners of Kuch Nai Scotch whiskey to sell in India. It sells about 450 cases a month. All are priced in the affordable category. This is a business Burman understands well. When he was studying in the US, he worked part-time as a bartender. While looking after Dabur's food business, he led the campaign to sell Real fruit juices to cocktail mixers at bars. And these days, he is trying out Vodka with coconut water that Dabur plans to launch shortly under the Real umbrella. "It tastes very nice," says Burman.