Next gen drives expansion of Chennai's Sri Krishna Sweets

Company is looking at launching snack products in retail market, plans to expand restaurant, food products retail business

The next generation of regional traditional family-run sweets and snack store chain Sri Krishna Sweets is looking at taking the brand to new areas, including restaurants and cafeteria business, apart from food products stores offering ethnic items. It is also planning to launch snack products which were so far available in its stores, in multibrand outlets.

The conventional sweet store chain, after 20 years of launching in Chennai, is now looking at possibilities of hitting multi-brand retail stores with its packaged snacks boxes with unconventional designs, setting up new restaurants under the brand Sri Krishna Bhavan and cafeteria under the brand Bolizza and stand alone food products stores in the city. Plans are also there to tie up with e-commerce majors to sell its products online.

Shruthi Murali and Sneha Murali, daughters of M Murali, managing director and second generation entrepreneur in the family, are active in the business of Sri Krishna Sweets now. While the elder daughter Shruthi joined business three to four years back and takes care of the Food Products Division, Sneha, who joined business almost a year ago, is focusing on restaurants and cafeteria business.

"In the 20th year of our launch in Chennai, we are starting afresh," said Murali. He said that the retail chain, which has been focusing on sweet products with its flagship product Mysurpa, has now started to focus on the "Karas" the snack items like mixture and Murukku, with different flavours and shapes such as two inch sticks of Muruku.

The company has designed a new plastic box containers from small to large sizes and extra packs of spices or salt for the buyer to customise the flavour of the product. It has started launching the product in its 38 outlets in Chennai and other parts, where he does the business.

"We are analysing the demand and processes now. We may look at selling in the retail market after six months or so," he added. He is heading the business in Chennai and cities such as Kanchipuram, Tiruvallur, Puducherry and Thiruvannamalai, while his elder brother M Krishnan is heading the business in rest of the places.

Chennai itself has more opportunities to open more branches and he is planning to open 10-15 more outlets in next two to three years in the city, he said. Out of the 38 stores at present, 17 has the restaurant Sri Krishna Bhavan as shop in shop.

"We are focusing on creating a different ambience and look for the restaurants and offer some of the ethnic food items, which is not in the market now," said Sneha. The focus on restaurants started almost two weeks back and it will be on track in a month or two, she added. It has stopped its previous restaurant brand Rassa, which had two centres in Chennai. It has seven major restaurants running at present, in shop-in-shop model, and once these outlets pick up volume, the company will think about taking up the restaurants to new places, including as standalone shops, she added.

She said that the Bolizza, a coffee shop format of shop specialising on new varieties of the traditional food item boli and offers different mixes of sandwiches in Indian and foreign style. The model is expected to grow faster and there would be around 20-25 stores under the brand within a year, she said.

"We are doing the trial of these concepts at present. I think we will complete the R&D works in next four to five months. After that we will take up the expansion and the financial details will be worked out then," said Murali. He did not reveal the revenue of the company, but said that with the new plans, the company is expected to double its revenue in next two years.